


But I'll Keep Coming

by anniebibananie



Series: not with a bang but a whimper [3]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Apocalypse, F/M, Modern Era, Plague AU, Unlikely Partners In Crime
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-29
Updated: 2019-04-03
Packaged: 2019-12-26 01:28:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 22,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18273014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anniebibananie/pseuds/anniebibananie
Summary: If you had asked Jaime before the plague came out of nowhere and decimated most of normality who he would be spending the end of the world with, someone like Brienne Tarth wouldn't have even been close to making the list. Though, now he was pretty sure she was the only one worth having on it.Brienne wasn’t sure there was much to be surprised about now that the world she had known was gone, but somehow Jaime Lannister kept proving her wrong. She was almost starting to like it.





	1. part one — jaime

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ofhobbitsandwomen (litvirg)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/litvirg/gifts).



> is it obvious yet that i love this universe? also, at no point do i address that jaime would know renly and we're just going to pretend that's okay because i didn't feel like dealing with it. thank you and good night. 
> 
> for steph because legit i never would have actually written this if she hadn't gotten me majorly in my braime feelings lately. also let's consider this a super early birthday present just in case i fuck up with getting part two out before then <3

                                                         

* * *

* * *

Jaime watched Cersei behind the News Desk, reaching a hand up to the earpiece to hear it more clearly. She was beautiful like this—holding the news in front of her, in charge of what the world did or didn’t get to hear. She had always glowed the most when she had power, specifically when she knew it.

“Breaking News,” she said, and then Jaime remembered he had to get back to producing this show, but he could hear her continue as he returned to his post—the televisions and speakers reverberating her voice through the hallways. “This morning we reported briefly on the sickness that has been running rampant through the country, but it would seem that in the last few hours the spread of the disease has only skyrocketed.

“While the number of deaths has yet to be specified, the amount so far has been known to be insuperable. There is no known causes, and whether it is transferable through the air or direct contact has yet to be identified. At this time, the CDC recommends staying isolated for your own health and safety until a cure can be found and distributed.”

Jaime felt the temperature of the atmosphere shift as he got closer back to the main newsroom space. People were looking around, as if waiting for someone to say _yes, go home,_ but he wasn’t particularly worried. He had been working his way up to this position since he had graduated college, and in all that time the world had yet to end.

The news had only gotten more sensationalized since he started all those years ago. It was about getting views, about pulling in the people to care about _our_ news more than the other major networks. He had a nighttime newscast to prepare for, and he couldn’t do that if his team was freaking out about the fact that whatever was going on was big enough to pull in their leading newscaster Cersei Lannister for an all-day broadcast.

“We’re going to break briefly to show you some of the disturbing footage of what some concerned citizens are calling a 21st Century Plague,” Cersei’s voice rang out, and Jaime entered into the main space to see every employee paused and watching.

He turned and watched, too. His heart stopped a little bit, because he had seen a lot of disturbing tragedies and terrifying outbreaks in his time, but this was un _precedented._ The body bags were piling up on top of one another, and there were some clips where they didn’t even _have_ enough body bags to do so. They were wrapped in blankets and sheets tied together.

The hospitals were closing because they didn’t have the floor space. People were banging against the doors, and it was turning global. No one was safe. Jaime gulped, finally feeling that little sprout of fear he rarely seemed to feel in his life grow.

“Mr. Lannister,” a small voice came from behind him, and he turned to see one of the handful of interns he hadn’t bothered to learn names of, yet. “Are we— Are we supposed to stay?”

Jaime looked up from the short brunette to see everyone else in the office had begun to look at him, too. Waiting for his approval. He could decide right here and now what might happen to these people. Something loud and violent cracked outside, and most of the staff ran toward the window in time to see people screaming as they ran from some sort of explosion.

He turned, feeling the weight of the office’s eyes on him. The intern was shaking.

“I can’t force you all to stay,” he said. “If you have family, somewhere you’d rather be while this hopefully passes…” His eyes ran over all the familiar faces he had turned into his news family, though he had never truly let himself get that close to any of these people. It was easier to make decisions when you only had to worry about one person, and that person wasn’t even yourself.

“Thank you all for your hard work,” he said. His mouth opened and shut while he processed what else there possibly was to say, but luckily the people began moving as they packed up their things. Some were loitering about still, whether that be from a disbelief or an inability to leave the normal world behind Jaime wasn’t sure.

Ros, one of his junior producers, approached him with the vivacity she always seemed to carry around the office. He appreciated that about her.

“Jaime?” she asked. He gave her full attention. “I want to stay. I think people need to keep hearing the news for as long as we can give them it.”

“I won’t stop you,” he said. “Whoever wants to stay is more than allowed to.”

“Will you?” she asked with a challenging jut of her chin. Jaime had the answer yes sitting on his tongue—this was his _life_ —but then he saw Cersei standing in the corner, her lips set in determination, and he already knew the answer.

“I have to talk to my sister, but you’re in charge for now, Ros, okay?”

She nodded, a smile spreading across her face, and went back to their coworkers that were still sitting at their computers waiting for orders.

Cersei met him in the middle, her bun already pulled out so her blonde hair was rappelling down her shoulders. “I need to go get Tommen,” she said without missing a beat. “I got called from his school already, and I need to call Joffrey. Myrcella is all the way…”

“I can get her,” Jaime said. “I’ll get Myrcella.”

In a rare moment, Cersei smiled. “Good,” she said. “I’ve got news of a safe house, it’s only for the highest bidders, but we have in’s. Grab Myrcella and get her there. I’ll text you the address.”

Cersei reached forward and patted his cheek before turning around, moving onto the next thing. Jaime was left staring after her, wondering how life had changed so horrifically in just a handful of hours. Wondering if it would ever go back.

* * *

Myrcella was an hour south at Dorne College, and while it hadn’t been too difficult to get down to pick her up, by the time they were in the car and heading toward the address Cersei had texted things weren’t going too well.

“Uncle Jaime?” Myrcella said as the car was halted again on the highway.

Jaime had been trying to remain calm as to not worry Myrcella, but as the drive became longer and longer he was starting to plan how exactly they could get there if it ended up having to be on foot.

“Yes?” he asked, one hand on the wheel, and the other scratching at the shadow he hadn’t had time to shave off this morning before work.

“Are you really sure Cersei is going to meet us there?”

He turned his head, raising a brow. “Since when do you call your mother Cersei?”

She was as beautiful as her mother, really. Her blonde hair pulled up into a bun, her face bare but for mascara and chapstick. Just as beautiful and yet somehow had never learned to be vain. What a blessing that she had ended up so soft.

“Since I went to college and realized how fucking crazy she is.”

“Your mother loves you,” Jaime said. “Hell, she’d kill for you.”

“And that sounds healthy to you?” she asked. “Someone loving you doesn’t give them a pass for everything…” She trailed off, her voice going softer as she looked out the window. “You should know that.”

He blanched, feeling that truth he so often pushed away. _The two of us against the world. Fuck everyone else._ They’d been saying it their whole lives, but what kind of life was that? He was loved, though. So ravenously loved.

“Why wouldn’t your mother meet us there?” he asked.

Myrcella met his eyes. The cars hadn’t moved for six minutes now. “She’ll never abandon Joffrey. She might love me, but she worships him. _That_ fucking monster.”

Jaime didn’t have it in him to chastise her language or her comments. The cars pulsed forward. “Joffrey is halfway across the country.”

“Exactly,” she said. “What a choice for a mother to make.”

 _Your mother,_ he thought, but when he looked at her he couldn’t understand it. Myrcella had not inherited a drop of her mother’s cruelty, thirst for power, disregard for others. She was powerful, true, but in a way that was so unknowably kind.

“We need to make it there first,” Jaime said. He hadn’t realized yet, but he had already started thinking in simple tasks. _Get Myrcella. Drive there. Survive._ One task completed, another springing into its place. Lists were already becoming too difficult to hope for.

* * *

By the time they finally arrived to the safe house, the night quickly taking over, Jaime was almost out of gas. They hadn’t been able to stop, the masses of people in areas like gas stations and grocery stores too large to handle.

The radio had cut out an hour ago. Jaime wondered about Ros, whether she was still giving some version of the news, or whether television stations were already going down. He wondered what would have happened if he stayed.

The safe house was less of a house and more of a mansion. The two of them parked on the street, Myrcella throwing her backpack over her shoulder while Jaime locked the car. It felt ridiculous seeing he was becoming more aware he would not be seeing this car for quite some time. Until the chaos calmed down, at least.

There was a gate, and when Jaime hit the call button it rang long enough for him to be worried. Then a voice came through the buzzer.

“Name?”

Jaime stepped forward. “Lannister?”

“You have any kind of identification on that?”

He pulled out his driver’s license and held it up to where he assumed the camera was. Then the gates buzzed, and they made the trek up to the house. They were searched by a small staff of security personnel before they were permitted in, and then it only got stranger.

The house was holding about 50 people in total, mostly some variant of rich and famous. There had been a high buy in, and Jaime was uncertain how Cersei had any way of knowing about this when the time came. There should be enough food to last them until the major blowout, and if they could maintain the garden it would be sustainable longer.

“She’s not here,” Myrcella said after they had walked through the rooms. They were put in a back bedroom with two twin beds. She threw her backpack on one and sat down. “Have you checked your phone?”

Jaime pulled it out of his pocket and found a voicemail. It was Cersei, and he cursed himself for not paying better attention.

_I got to Tommen, but he… the disease got him. If you get this, I hope it means you got Myrcella. I can’t meet you without trying for Joffrey, though, if thin–_

It cut out, and he raised his gaze to Myrcella. She was working her bottom lip between her teeth, staring at nothing in particular.

“What’s happened?” she asked.

“Tommen, he…”

She nodded, falling down onto the bed and turning away from him quickly. “I should’ve known, probably.”

“Your mother…”

“You don’t need to say it,” she whispered.

There was a sniffle, but Jaime didn’t know how to approach. He had never really known how to approach. He had spent too much of his life with Cersei, who stamped out sadness with cruelty. She had never needed comforting, and who else was Jaime supposed to learn to be gentle from? His mother had been gone, and his father was harsher than Cersei.

“At least we still have each other,” she whispered a minute later, and Jaime bridged the gap, squeezed her shoulder, and bent beside the bed. How could he not find the bravery to come close after those words?

“At least we still have that,” he agreed in a whisper.

He waited until she was asleep, hoping to remind her there was at least still someone, then he went to walk the halls.

* * *

It was an impressive set up they had, truly, and it was remote enough that Jaime could forget about how the world was falling apart outside. Communications were all down, now, and Jaime had to assume that meant things weren’t going to get better outside any time soon. He wished desperately he could have reached out to Cersei one last time, but he had to hope she would be okay.

They were three days in, and most of everyone had been keeping well enough to themselves besides for meal times. Each person was expected to contribute in some small way, but there wasn’t much to do besides sit and wait. Jaime didn’t feel much like talking to these people he didn’t care about, so he spent most of his days in the room and nights wandering the halls.

He had planned on sitting in the big living room and staring out to the yard, but there was a large woman in his spot. She had short cut blonde hair and strong shoulders. Jaime wracked his mind, trying to think if he could remember her from the few situations they may have shared.

As he moved, he hit his knee against one of the couches and she bounded up with a gun already in her hands. She was freakishly tall for a woman, he couldn’t help thinking. An inch taller than himself, maybe? It was hard to tell this far off. He held his arms up.

“Woah now, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I’d hate for you to put a bullet through me.”

She scowled. Jaime wasn’t all that used to women scowling at him. She sat back down.

“How did you get a gun past security?” he asked, unable to keep the curiosity at bay.

“I am security,” she said, “just private.”

“For whom?” he asked, pulling up a chair beside her. He hadn’t anticipated wanting company, but now that _she_ was here he couldn’t seem to resist. She was sort of prickly in a way he associated with having something interesting hiding behind the surface. Life was getting even more dull in here, and anything would be a welcome distraction.

“Renly Baratheon,” she said, and Jaime had a hard time deciphering the tone of her voice.

“That’s some hell of loyalty,” he said. “The end of the world, still covering someone else’s ass.”

She shrugged.

“Gods, would you shut up?” he said with a joking tone of disgust. “You just won’t stop _talking,_ will you.”

Her eyes rolled so high he could see almost entirely the whites of her eyes. “Why exactly does Jaime Lannister care what I’m doing here?”

“Ooo.” He smiled, it stretching slow and wide. “That’s not fair. You know who I am, and I don’t know the same about you.”

“It’s my job to know potential threats,” she said.

“I’m a potential threat?”

She shrugged again, her big shoulders changing the whole silhouette with their movement. “It’s the end of the world.”

“You didn’t answer my question. The one before that,” Jaime said.

“I don’t actually _recall_ you asking a question,” she said, but it was clear she could feel Jaime’s eyes on the side of her face, and she released a heavy sigh. “Fine, Brienne Tarth.”

“Brienne Tarth,” he said, the name rolling over his tongue so he could find purchase. “Pleasure to meet you, really. You might be one of the less dull people in this place.”

Brienne scoffed. “I doubt that.” Rising to her feet, she wiped away dust from her pants that Jaime doubted was actually there. She seemed like the kind of woman who had never learned exactly how to be in her body, finding ways to shift the discomfort of simply _being._ Never realizing the power it could hold instead. “I need to be up early, so I’ll be heading in.”

“You don’t seem to get the benefits of the end of the world,” he said.

She paused before turning, eyeing his face for a beat before clearing her throat. “You haven’t heard anything about… well…”

“Spit it out,” he said, not entirely unkindly but also not holding much pleasantries.

“I heard some men talking earlier about trying to take over the food stores, establish some sort of new order within here.”

Jaime whistled. “I haven’t, but I wouldn’t be surprised. People are always fighting for power.”

“You don’t seem all that concerned.”

“Oh, I’m a survivor. I’d make it out no matter what happens,” he said. “No one ever said the apocalypse would be pretty.”

She ran a hand over her hair. “Not with a bang but a whimper,” she whispered.

“And why exactly are you quoting Eliot at no one?” he asked. “I’d say the fucking plague was a huge bang.”

The wind rustled outside the house, whistling as it rushed past the big, glass house. It was almost like living in a fish bowl, except Jaime had no idea how many people were still outside. No one was looking in, instead they were all just looking out, hoping to look and suddenly see the world back the way it was. The outside world felt more like a zoo, the animal safely behind the cage but still there—being an animal. It felt far away, though. Somehow, those few feet seeming like a protection.

Jaime had only seen her briefly, only spent a handful of minutes now with Brienne, but staring at her—the giantess of a woman—he wondered if some people were made for the end of everything. A world with less rules, less expectations. He imagined she might wear it better than she ever had her role in the before.

“The plague was just the start,” she said. “People like those men, people who’ll take advantage of the rubble… what a whimper.”

She turned away from him, and he was sad for it in some strange way. He wasn’t even sure he actually _liked_ this woman, but she was _interesting_ and he had found that much more useful than a like. He didn’t seem to actually _like_ many people. Or maybe he had never given himself the chance to. Cersei had always been a jealous woman, in that way.

“Why me?” he asked, and he hated that he had because it seemed to admit some sense of uncertainty in himself he never wanted to show. “How do you know I’m not one of those men?”

Her frame stopped just before the hallway, seeming to already take up the whole of that black space, and she barely looked her head over her shoulder. It seemed impossible for her eyes to meet his. “You have loyal eyes. I… I can’t explain it.”

“You don’t know me,” he said, his voice as taut as a tightrope. Not angry, not upset, not open… just a fine-tuned nothing. Another tool in his arsenal he had learned to keep his appearance non-caring and nonchalant.

“No,” she said, already disappearing into the hallway. “I don’t.”

* * *

Jaime hadn’t slept much the last few nights, unable to stop thinking about where Cersei was and those words Brienne had revealed to him. The tensions within the house already seemed to be growing, now that he was fully paying attention to them, anyways.

“You’re overwatering,” Myrcella said, pulling the can from his hands. She had taken to the gardens and fussing over all the plants and vegetables. It seemed some place she could find some sense of peace, even with all the tragedy.

They didn’t let them go further than the borders of the backyard. Jaime wondered why, but he didn’t say anything. He just watched, observed, took in as much as he could.

“I clearly don’t have the green thumb you do,” he said, taking a step back. He only came out to spend time with her, anyways. Fuck the plants, for all he cared.

“That much is apparent,” she said with a soft sigh, pushing hair behind her ears to get it out of the way. The sun shined off the blonde. When she looked up, there was blood dribbling down her nose.

“Your nose,” he said, and her eyes went slightly cross-eyed as she tried to look down and see what was happening. He took a step forward as she brought a hand up to touch at the blood. So bright in the sun and against her pale skin. “You’re bleeding. Do you have a bloody nose?”

“That must be it,” she said, though as the phrase ended she was coughing already. Blood splattered out from her throat, and she collapsed into the dirt.

“Myrcella!” he dove onto the ground, picking her up. Her eyes were fluttering, getting redder and puffier by the second. She was awake but just barely. “You’re fine, you’re going to be fine.” He looked up, trying to find anyone. “Help!”

There was one guard by the door, though he looked torn. He turned and disappeared into the house, and Jaime was left outside with only Myrcella in his arms and the sun beating down against his neck. It wasn’t a convenient position, but he was able to get his arm underneath her knees and the other around her back as he pushed up to his feet to stand.

When he looked up there were two guards back on the deck of the house. They were pointing guns, watching her in his arms.

“She can’t come back in here,” one of them said.

“She’s just… a little sick,” he said. “It’ll pass. I’m going to take her to her bedroom.”

“She _can’t_ come back in here,” he repeated.

“ _Please_ ,” Jaime said, a plea more than anything. He could see people through the glass, staring but too afraid to step outside. Him and Myrcella had become the zoo animals now. They were too dangerous to look at unless behind glass. All those people, so afraid they were going to catch something.

Had he done this to her? By letting her outside? Some of the people in the house were afraid to do even that, sure the plague would catch them in the air. It wasn’t like the inside was filtered, though. The same air ran through the vents.

Brienne pushed through the two guards, coming to the edge of the deck and seeing her in his arms. He was straining a bit—he didn’t get as much time to work out trapped in a house.

She turned to the guards. “You have to let him in. The sickness isn’t proven to be contagious to anyone who isn’t predisposed to it.”

“They _can’t_ come in,” he said, “and you were supposed to stay inside.”

“Where do I go?” Jaime asked, desperate more than anything. The wave of emotions that was plowing over him was too much to handle.

The silent guard pointed his gun toward the shed on the corner of the property. The same one they had gotten fertilizer from just minutes ago.

“You can’t be serious,” Jaime said, but his voice was getting tired by the end of the phrase. It had lost ferocity.

The guard just kept pointing. Finally, with his arms straining, he walked toward the shed.

“I’ll bring some blankets and water,” Brienne called down.

He paused and looked up at her, the short blonde hair looking like a halo in the sun, and nodded. She rushed back into the house, he walked toward the garden shed, and the world was filled with desperate uncertainty.

* * *

“Uncle Jaime,” she said in a rush, her voice frail and tired.

Her skin had grown sickly pale in the last few hours. It was dark now, and Jaime had assumed she was asleep despite their current conditions. She was lying on a comforter with a thin blanket over her that kept getting thrown off or tucked tightly around her as the temperatures she felt switched back and forth rapidly. He laid beside her, praying for her to sit up and suddenly feel perfectly healthy.

He knew that wasn’t how it worked. But he _hoped._ If he didn’t have Myrcella, he didn’t have anyone anymore. The vague hope of Cersei, maybe, but that wasn’t tangible. This girl, who had proven to be nothing but smart and kind when the world was telling her to be anything but. Just the thought of her being taken from this world made his whole body ache.

“Yes, sweet,” he said, reaching out a hand to run over her hair line.

“Can I get some more water?”

“Of course.” He stood up, feeling overly large in the small space.

“Thank you,” she said. A beat. “For everything, really.”

His throat was too tight to speak, so he nodded in the darkness and pushed out the door. There were no guards on duty, but as he walked up the stairs of the deck he could see Brienne sitting in that same spot they had been however many nights ago that had been through the large windows.

When he walked through the door, she jumped up to her feet. A hand came to her chest, trying to regain the breathe she had seemingly lost.  

“How is she…” she trailed off, searching his face looking for an answer.

“She just needs water,” he said, going to the resources in the kitchen. He could feel Brienne near, watching him. He couldn’t tell if he was bothered or comforted by it.

It felt wrong, to linger in this space for much longer when Myrcella was down there losing energy by the second. He couldn’t admit that she was dying, yet. If he admitted it, said it aloud, hell even _thought_ it, that was the end. Despite that, he needed a second to breathe. He moved toward Brienne and sat beside her.

“You don’t seem like someone who’d want comfort,” Brienne said after a pause.

Jaime breathed deeply in. He wasn’t all that sure who he was at all. Especially not in this new world. “What could I possibly need comfort for?”

He was pretty sure he could feel her roll her eyes, but maybe he was already imagining her a certain way. She was sort of palate cleansing, really.

“How are things going in here? I’m sure Myrcella didn’t help already high tensions.”

“Half the people here wanted to burn the shed with both of you in it.”

Jaime hummed. “Comforting.” He ran a hair over his chin, feeling the bristles of the hair he had yet to shave. “Should I be worried about that?”

“No,” she said clearly, powerfully, “I have a gun.”

“If you’re going to shoot me just get on with it,” he said, mostly joking. He couldn’t actually imagine her reaching around and killing him clean.

“I mostly just need it to intimidate,” Brienne said. “Not that my stature doesn’t do that enough. But if someone did come, try something. I have a gun.”

More than three decades on this wretched planet, and Jaime had never properly known how to show gratitude. He gave a small grunt. “Good to know.”

“Go back to bed, you might not get a lot of rest for a while.”

He wasn’t sure exactly what she was referring to, but he did what she said all the same.

* * *

Myrcella coughed, the sound growing to something harsh and unbearable. A small pile of blood grew by her bedroll.

“Here,” Jaime said, dipping forward with water. The sun was beginning to peek through the windows, just the faintest hint of it.

She swallowed loudly, as if it took her whole body to do it. “Do you remember my eleventh birthday?” she asked as she dipped her head back against the pillow. Her eyes were closed, but her lips were tilted slightly upward.

“Was that the circus one?” he asked.

“No.” She shook her head, blonde hair falling over her face. “We went to the beach. Mom thought maybe I should do something with classmates, but I didn’t want to. I just wanted to go to the beach, swim in the waves.”

“Oh, yes. Now I remember. Tommen nearly drowned, and Joffrey spent half the day chasing down crabs to bury them in their holes. The little monster.” Jaime moved to sit back against the wall, resting his head there, too.

“It definitely was a bit of a downer of a day,” she said with a small chuckle. She paused, then, as if the laugh had hurt too much. “I should have realized family always makes things more complicated. I thought it was going to suck, then you lifted me up on my shoulders and walked me into the water. Do you remember?”

He tried to. Really tried to reach out for the memory she was holding onto. There were faint impressions of the day—the tension in the air, the beating sun. Cersei had been frustrated because she had been upstaged by another new’s network and had been unable to leave her foul mood at work. Myrcella’s memory, though, didn’t seem to pull out as a thread from the tapestry.

“Yes,” he said anyways.

Her lips tilted up again. “I felt like a giant up there, on your shoulders, the waves trying to beat us down. I felt like a bird, like I could fly away at any moment. Then Tyrion got me that huge ice cream cone. It was a good day.”

Jaime’s throat felt tight, and he scooted over to her. He flipped around, so his thigh was by her head and his back against the other wall. She scooted closer, and he could feel how hot she was through the barest of touch.

“I’m glad. You deserve good days.”

“Yeah,” she said with a sigh. “Yeah.”

* * *

Myrcella passed three hours and forty-two minutes later. Then Jaime sat there, feeling like he couldn’t breathe as he stared at the bags of fertilizer, for at least another thirty. He stopped, bending over to look at her peaceful face and wiped away the lasting splotches of blood.

Who was he if he couldn’t protect anyone he loved? Who was he if he was all alone now?

Without much warning, he sprung up and grabbed the shovel from the corner of the shed and made his way out into the garden. It was still fairly early, and most people weren’t commonly found out in the yard anyways, so it was empty. He found a nice spot, near a large oak tree with suitable shade, and began to dig.

Despite the early hour, the sun was blaring. Only a few scoops of earth in Jaime could feel sweat pooling on his neck. Still, he kept going. About halfway through, he felt someone come near him and begin to dig. He paused, looking up.

“Here. Take a drink,” the man said. He was fairly unkempt, half his hair up in a top knot on his head. Jaime took the water and drank.

“I don’t know your name,” he said, blunter than he would normally find himself.

“Thoros.” He seemed unbothered by the brashness. “You’re Jaime, yes?”

Jaime nodded.

“And this is for the girl?”

He nodded again.

“Well,” Thoros said, then he turned toward the makeshift and helped dig the earth, one scoop at a time.

It went quicker, and by the time Jaime was waist deep in the ground he was feeling rather proud of the hole they had created. Then he thought of Myrcella lying in it, and he felt sick to his stomach.

“Do you want me to say any words for her? A prayer, perhaps?” Thoros asked as he set the shovel down.

“You a priest?”

He shrugged. “Something like that.”

“I’d like to be left alone,” he said. Thoros nodded. “I appreciate the…”

Thoros waved him off. “It’s been getting a bit stifling in the house, anyways.” He scratched his nose grotesquely in a way that made Jaime scowl. “There are a few men here that are planning to leave tonight. It’s been restrictive, we’re just trying to forge our own path. If you’d like to join.”

Jaime stared at the hole. Suddenly he had an image of Myrcella there, half-decayed and barely like herself. Yet, her eyes open and staring right at him.

“I’ll have to think about it.”

“Good man,” Thoros said, reaching out and patting his shoulder before leaving.

The hole seemed to speak unbearable things to him he couldn’t escape. He went to pick up Myrcella, attempt to say goodbye. Then, he would try to figure out the next. Whatever the hell that would be.

 _Fly away,_ he almost said aloud before deciding it was too cheesy, too emotional. _Now you can finally fly away._

* * *

Despite having spent the night in the garden shed, it seemed as if Jaime’s room was untouched. He went to the bathroom, cleaned himself up, and then laid on the bed. A whole lot of nothing but staring at the ceiling followed.

By the time the sun had set and the moon was in full glow, he could hear the soft movements of people shuffling out. He thought about it, briefly, for a moment, before it seemed impossible for him to get up from the bed. His eyes turned to Myrcella’s bed, where the sheets were still ruffled and her sweatshirt was still flung at the foot.

The house settled into silence. He stood up, made his way to the living room, sat where Brienne had been the night before.

Below him, the garden made him think he could imagine Myrcella still alive and ready to work the next day. Who would even want to tend to it now? His thoughts trailed from there as he sat in the living room, unsure of what was going to come next.

“Hi.” He looked up to see Brienne in track pants and an oversized sweatshirt, the skin around her eyes pink. “Are they all gone?”

He nodded. “Why didn’t you leave with them?”

“Renly’s here,” she said.

Her eyes weren’t meeting his, and he couldn’t tell if she was avoiding him because she was hiding or because he wasn’t much to look at. Dirty face and stubble growing through, he probably looked like the embodiment of grief. He wished he could hold a whisky bottle in his hands, drink himself to the bottom of the bottle, and properly complete the image.

“He’s sick,” she said.

Jaime didn’t know what to say, so he slid over and she sat beside him. “Is it…”

“Yeah,” she breathed out. “I’m sorry to bring it up, with everything that just hap—”

“You love him,” he said. He didn’t really know why it felt so important to say.

She didn’t respond.

“You know he’s—”

“Of course I do,” she hissed, turning her red eyes on him. “I’m not an idiot. Do you think that could possibly matter?”

He shook his head. “We don’t get to choose who we love.”

She looked at him, searched his face. From what he knew of her, Brienne wasn’t particularly bold when it came to human interactions so he found it almost out of character. Though, she had always been purely honest to what seemed a fault. Maybe this was an honesty, too.

“You’ve never loved someone who doesn’t love you back,” she said before turning her gaze outside.

The wind whistled through the trees and over the glass side of the house. It felt supremely empty outside the house. Inside it, too. He didn’t answer. He wasn’t sure there was much point as it hadn’t really been a question.

“Would you want him to love you back?” he asked.

She finally looked at him again, and in some small way he felt like it was her acknowledging him. _You’ve asked a good question, finally,_ it almost seemed to say _._ He’d never really cared about pleasing someone besides his siblings before.

“Not the way you think,” she said. “He’s kind, brave. I think people that are good like him deserve to have others willing to lay their life down.”

And just for having that thought, believing that to be true, Jaime knew she was better than any of them. Usually that sort of goodness would annoy him, but he just found himself sort of awed.

He tried not to look too filled with pity. It _wasn’t_ pity. Just truth. “You can’t fight this, though.”

“No,” she agreed. “I can’t fight this.”

The wind outside seemed to whistle louder.

* * *

The change in the house the next week was palpable. Almost half of the house had left, and the people left inside seemed to be mostly shocked by the disappearance. For the most part they were happy—now the stores would last them longer, there was more space, the list went on. Jaime could still feel the tension though, no matter how removed he was, and knew it would only be a matter of time before things went totally south.

Renly had died even quicker than Myrcella. Jaime hadn’t seen Brienne much since then, not even at night.

He was in the garden, trying to aerate some of the soil, when he heard her coming down the stairs. It sort of shocked him how he had become familiar with her sound. She sat a few feet away from him, legs crossed, watching his movements. He tried not to stare, only grasping for glimpses between his movements. Her eyes were rimmed in red, still, but the rest of her looked hard instead of defeated.

For her sake, he wished there was someone she could take down with that gun of hers to avenge her friend. It would make it easier. Mostly, he knew because he thought the same thing at night.

“Where’s Loras?” Jaime asked. The two had spent most of their time together since Renly was gone. Or, at least he had assumed they had.

“He left,” she said. Her voice was scratchy, but it was still thick and sure.

That shocked him. Jaime had been fairly sure the three of them were sort of a unit despite their previously professional relationship. It was easy because of her strength and size to remember sometimes that Brienne was young. But now, watching the way she crumpled into herself, the sweatshirt hanging over her features, he could see it like a blaring warning sign. She’d gotten less time than him to live in the normal world before tragedy had begun to taint everything.

“Did you know he was going to?” he asked, though by the way her face scrunched up he assumed that was a no.

“He waited until I was asleep,” she said. “Then he snuck out the back. They all seem pretty upset about it up there. He took a gun.”

He let out a low, long whistle. “How much ammo he take?”

Her eyes were lifeless suddenly, and he could easily imagine her as a doll discarded on the floor with those large, blue eyes seeming to see nothing at all.

“Only three bullets," she whispered.

 _With a whimper,_ he thought again. A man disappearing into the wilderness never to return, to probably end it. Jaime felt like he had lost everything, and yet he hadn’t ever contemplated that. Though, he still had hope that Cersei was out there. Maybe Tyrion, somewhere, too. Was that the simple difference? The barest hope for someone else?

He looked up to get a good look at Brienne. She looked wrecked in every way of the word. What did she have to keep her going? He wondered if there was anything, anyone, out there she still cared about.

“I’m sorry, Brienne.” It was easier to say it than he expected.

She bit her lip, and Jaime could see a puncture of blood. It wasn’t an attractive bite, nothing sultry about her lip. It was rough, ragged. She looked it, too.

“Do you mind if I sit here?” she asked. “The yelling upstairs… I’d rather hear the birds and the wind.”

He motioned with his hand. “I couldn’t care less,” he said, wondering when that had become a lie.

* * *

Jaime didn’t dream. He never really had for as long he could remember. The end of the world, Myrcella’s death… none of that changed that.

Sometimes, though, during the day he was almost certain he could feel ghosts. Over his shoulder he would hear Myrcella’s laugh. By his thigh he could feel Tommen in the way he used to walk behind him around the house following like a little duck, so closely Jaime would turn and nearly step on him.

Maybe he was just going crazy. Probably, most likely, but he almost thought it was somehow making him sane. The house delved into insanity, and Jaime was desperately attempting to not do the same.

* * *

He found her where she often was, and he went to sit beside her as they watched the expanse of yard outside. Jaime had begun feeling like he was trapped, especially as the people around them were growing more stir-crazy every day. He had always felt trapped, probably, but it wasn’t until he started feeling the loneliness of being trapped more acutely had it come to the forefront.

“I don’t actually know what you do– _did,_ ” she corrected. Her blonde hair was messy and pushed behind her ears. He had the oddest desire to see what it would look like pushed back, gelled maybe, as he imagined she must have worn it. It would show off her pale skin, her blue eyes.

“I thought you knew who I was that first time we met,” he said.

“I knew who you were,” she said with a nod. She was finding her voice more with him the last few days. Jaime wondered when he had stopped preferring the silence, or how silence with her was something he had become to enjoy, too. “Not much more than the infamous Jaime Lannister gossip.”

He weighed that in his hands, wondering what she had all heard. “I was an Executive Producer at Landing News Channel,” he said with a shake of his head.

“Hm,” she hummed, turning her gaze back toward the back window. “Landing News.”

“And _what_ , exactly is that supposed to mean?”

She shrugged. “I never much liked it, quite honestly. Too much drama, not enough truth.”

A million rebuttals fought their way to his tongue. He wanted to say he had always wanted to tell the news how it should be, but there were _pressures._ Numbers to be thought of, an audience he needed to speak to. Cersei who had wanted to control the way the channel presented itself, the way an audience would connect with her. But what did any of those things matter now? The plague had ended that, at least—the excuses. There was no bullshit to cut through anymore, just the undiluted truth.

“You’re right,” he said. “I had always hoped to get it to something different, but…” The words died. No point.

“You were one of the first news station to go down, weren’t you?” Brienne said, her lips pursed.

The look made Jaime’s anger flare awake, but mostly it made him angry because he understood what she was implying. He felt it, too. Thought about it when the nights got dark and quiet and his mind wouldn’t stop racing. In all his years he had only been loyal to two things—Cersei and the news. Now, he had seemed to fail both. Maybe he had always been failing them both.

His mind flashed to Myrcella, the blood delicately running down from her nose. For a moment, maybe he had thought he could have served more than those two things.

“I know what you must think of me,” he said, shaking his head. He wasn’t speaking with anger, exactly, not entirely sadness either. It was some mixture of desire, truly, a desire to be seen as he _was._ “People have been saying it about me for my entire life. I don’t deserve what I’ve been given. I’m not where I am from my own doing.

“Who can trust a Lannister, eh? My father created one of the biggest media conglomerates in the word through backstabbing. All I’ve ever tried to do was carve myself a piece of something, something for myself, and instead I’ve been lumped into a legacy I’ve never wanted any part of.”

He stopped to breathe, taking in a gasp of oxygen, and settled for whatever the reaction may be. Words had always managed to be both a weakness and a strength for him. Most of his life he felt as if he just designed the perfect phrase, he could get almost anyone on his side. But when it came to what he _felt?_ Words had never serviced him much.

“I could,” Brienne said after clearing her throat. She was leaned forward, her forearms on her knees.

“What?” he asked, snapping back to attention.

She turned toward him, her strangely intriguing face on display as it showed signs of discomfort. He thought maybe it was the oddness, and maybe the honesty that always seemed to leak through, that seemed to make her beautiful to him. He couldn’t really believe he had even grown to think that.

“Not any old Lannister,” she said, “but I could trust you.”

He felt his throat tighten up. How had the world not chewed her up and spit her up? She was too good. Before her, he had never thought people actually existed like that in the world. He hadn’t much thought people were actually _capable_ of being that good.

“Thank you,” he said. She nodded beside him, her face already turned back to the yard.

He found he liked her silence more than anyone else’s.

* * *

Brienne reached forward, the gardening gloves slipping down enough she paused to yank them back up, and pulled at a weed. Jaime was sort of transfixed with the way her face was flushing. Sweat pooled at her forehead, and she didn’t waste a second in wiping it away with her forearm. She puffed out an annoyed breath, pausing to look at Jaime.

“Oh, so I’m just going to do all the work then?” she asked. “At least be useful and give me some water.”

He passed the bottle, watched the way her neck strained as she chugged. Maybe he really was reaching his maximum for boredom, because Brienne had become more interesting by the day. He would almost say she was something like a puzzle, something he so desperately wanted to figure out, but that wasn’t quite true. There was something too open and honest about her to be a puzzle. Maybe he was just always looking for the ruse to reveal itself, for him to see some part of her that made him go _oh, there it is, I knew she couldn’t be this good._

“I heard Polliver this morning,” she said, resting on her heels as she took a minute to catch her breath. “The grain stores got looted last night. They’re trying to go room by room to see, but nothing has turned up, yet.”

“Fuck this place,” he released in a breathe.

She seemed twitchy, eyes darting between him and the weeds before she bent forward and got back to work.

“Just say it, Tarth.”

She sighed. “I don’t think it’s safe to stay.”

“I’m not saying I don’t agree, but you’ve been saying that quite frequently lately.”

“Things are getting a lot more fucked up in there,” she said, her voice suddenly rough.

He paused to look at her, _really_ look at her. Her hair was growing longer now, itching over her ears and at the nape of her neck. Those big, blue eyes that he could never get enough (if he was being honest with himself, which he very rarely was), stared right at him. Begging for him to understand the urgency she was feeling.

“I worked for Renly,” she said after a breathe, sitting back and letting her long, muscled legs out in front of her. From here, Jaime could see the freckles that dotted her thighs. “But I also worked for the Stark Company.”

“You’re fucking kidding me,” Jaime groaned. “The _Starks._ ”

“Oh, get over yourself. Even you can admit they’re good people.”

“Unbearable sticklers for the rules more like,” Jaime said. “Those Starks and their fucking _honor._ ”

“For most people, not unbearable idiots like you, honor is a good trait. Now, are you finished with your complaining?” she asked. He nodded, and she continued. “I know Catelyn didn’t make it—”

“I actually did like Catelyn, rather fierce,” Jaime mused. Brienne narrowed her eyes at the intrusion, and he held up his hands in surrender.

“We can agree on that,” she mumbled, shaking her head. “I know she didn’t make it, because before the cell phones went down she called me to tell me she wouldn’t. She has two daughters, though, and…”

“You’re not serious,” Jaime cut in. “See, this is what fucking honor gets you, Tarth. You want to make it all the way across the country to go try to find a girl who could be dead somewhere in a ditch. Why does this matter so much to you?”

Brienne’s mouth opened and closed, anger clearly running through her the way her breathing was quick and her cheeks grew pinker. She was fired up, prepped to fight with him, and he was ready for it. Then, as her face began to fall, Jaime had the horrible realization that this probably felt like her salvation.

She couldn’t save Renly, not that there ever had been anything she could do for him. She couldn’t save Loras, which was probably even harder. But the Stark girls, who for some odd reason Brienne felt some sense of loyalty to, was something she could attempt to do. It was the stupid bit of hope Jaime had been thinking about just the other night. What kept you going when there was no one else?

“I don’t need your permission, and I’d go without you,” she said, nodding her head like that was that.

Now it was his turn to catch his breath, because those words had caught him off guard somehow. He hadn’t really thought about this whole thing as an invitation, the idea that she wouldn’t want to leave without him. He didn’t think of them as friends, really, but he guessed they were something close to that. Two people who were desperately clinging onto one another when everyone else had disappeared.

“I don’t know if I can go,” he said, thinking about Cersei and Joffrey. If they were going to come back, they would come back to him, wouldn't they? But Cersei had shown no signs of that loyalty Brienne clearly held, and what was he waiting for?

Could he even handle staying here without Brienne?

In the before world, Jaime was pretty sure him and Brienne never would have been friends. He couldn’t even fathom how that would have happened. But here, now, there was something he didn’t want to let slip between his fingers. Something about her, and the way he felt he could be around her.

If he left, though, they would be moving East. The same direction Cersei had been heading for Joffrey. Maybe it was ridiculous, maybe he was reaching out to hold onto anything so desperately it was a joke, but if Brienne had hope to find the Stark girls then maybe he would find Cersei again.

“Well,” she said as she cleared her throat, tossing the water bottle back to him, “I’m not about to leave right this second.”

“Yeah,” he said, averting his gaze because there was something about her—too bright, too honest, too _Brienne_ —that seemed to overwhelm him.

* * *

Jaime didn’t dream. He never really had for as long he could remember, but the night before he woke up and discovered what would change everything again he dreamed of Brienne. Not all of her, really, but her energy, the feeling of her. Mostly, it was her eyes and the look she would sometimes give him that was sort of piercing. A look that was searching him for some part, some goodness, that he wanted to believe he had.

Then, he woke in a sweat.

For a moment, he contemplated turning over and trying to fall back asleep but he couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn't right. He grabbed the knife he had by his bedside and moved out of the bedroom, walking down the long hall to where Brienne’s room was. He had never actually stepped inside, just known where they were from watching her walk the rest of the way down and away from him.

It was quiet, and he was about to turn around and chastise himself for letting a stupid _dream_ get the better of him when there was a soft clatter beyond the door. His heart beat rapidly, drowning out any thoughts warring in his head, and he pushed through the door with force.

Brienne was on the floor, a stream of blood running down from her hairline, while Locke with his stupid goatee was standing above her holding a knife. The sound of Jaime entering must have been enough to shock him, and it was enough for Brienne to reach over to her gun and take a shot that blew Locke’s brains right out the back of his skull.

“Fuck,” Jaime said. He could feel the stain of some of the blood on his skin. “They sure as hell would have heard that.”

She seemed frozen to the ground, the gun in her hands, as she locked eyes with him. “How’d you know?”

“I dreamed of you,” he said, his voice oddly clear. It was the truth, as strange as it felt admitting.

Her body stayed unmoving as her eyes widened, and then she was moving onto the next thing and into action. “We have to go,” she said as she reached for her pack underneath the bed and threw it over her shoulder. “Do you have things?”

He nodded, though he wasn’t as prepared as her, and the two ran down the hall back to his room. He grabbed his bag, stuffing a change of clothes and his water bottle inside. He looked over at Myrcella’s things, couldn’t bear the thought of leaving them all behind, and reached for her wallet for her ID.

A picture slipped out, falling to the floor. It was of her and Tommen the day she had left for college. He slipped that into his back pocket, swallowing away the lump in his throat, and kept moving forward.

“Come on,” she said, tugging his hand to get them moving again.

The hallway was quiet, but once they had exited into the big living room and kitchen space there were already five people covering the exits.

“We can’t let you leave,” the guard, the same one who had been so dumbstruck when Myrcella started bleeding, said. _Now_ he could speak.

Brienne caught Jaime’s eye, and there was a moment where everything seemed to slow down and crystallize. This was one of those moments, the ones you couldn’t turn back from, and Jaime didn’t want to. It was Brienne, looking at him, making sure he was ready to fight for their lives to get out of here.

Months ago he would have never seen Brienne and thought _this one, this woman, is the one I’ll fight beside._ Now, he couldn’t think of anyone more worthy. Hell, _he_ was the one who wasn’t worthy, really. He was a ragged man with weak morals and a broken compass for a heart. She was strong, beautiful, uncompromising.

He nodded his head, just a bare fraction of an inch, and their gaze broke apart. Then, they fought.

* * *

“Fuck,” he said, limping forward as best he could. “Fuck, _fuck._ ”

“Just,” she said, adjusting the hold of his arm over her neck, “keep going. The fucks aren’t actually helping you any, you know.”

“A thank you is customary,” he said instead, trying to push his legs faster. “When someone throws themselves in front of danger for someone else.”

A tree branch hit him in the face, and he could swear he saw Brienne smirk beside him.

“Thank you for doing that stupid thing men like to do when they think they’re being gallant and saving some damsel by shoving your arm in front of that knife for me.” She huffed, aggravated, as they finally broke out of the woods onto a major highway.

It was so bizarre to finally see signs of the life they hadn’t been privy to the last few months. The highway was stacked with cars, and there were signs of decaying corpses in some of them. Jaime almost wretched at the sudden stench of death brought over by the breeze.  

“I’m going to thank you by keeping you alive,” Brienne said with a steely determination.

“You can’t beat that,” he said, feeling the blood dripping down past his fingers and onto the ground. His vision was blurring a little, but he was mostly alright. He was pretty sure.

She paused, and Jaime found himself leaning more into her side. She was warm and strong. His ankle was probably twisted and his arm was bleeding out from a deep cut, but was it stupid to say he sort of felt safe?

“Oh, that’ll do,” she said.

It took a minute for Jaime to find what she was talking about, but then his eyes rested on the abandoned Harley on the side of the road. If his whole body wasn’t screaming at him, he would have laughed. It felt so her.

“You’re conscious enough to hold on, right?” she asked, eyes bright and bloody smile on display. She looked so deliriously alive.

“Won't know until we try,” he said.

She nodded, apparently satisfied. “To the hospital we go, then.”


	2. part two — brienne

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now on the road, the two start their search for the remaining Starks, though it might not go exactly as planned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i quite honestly know how the story for all these different arcs in this universe ends, but will i ever get to writing the final conclusion for all our characters?? who freakin' knows. i guess if you'd be interested in seeing it, you should let me know.

“Why do you have to weigh so much,” she groaned as she threw him up on a table. He was barely conscious, had been for the last half hour which had only made it increasingly difficult to get here. 

Getting to the hospital had been like digging through piles of dead bodies. The closer they got, the more there was to deal with. The only good thing about that was that it seemed to have kept too many looters from getting their way into the hospital. Which was smart, really, because Brienne didn’t want to think about how much disease might be running rampant in here. 

Jaime moaned, a soft, sad sort of sound, and Brienne lifted his arm as delicately as she could manage to get a good look at it. He definitely needed stitches, and the bleeding had started to stop but he had lost a good amount of blood. 

“This probably won’t be pretty,” she said as she washed out the wound as best as she could. “What would you say back to that, huh? Something annoying.  _ I’m always pretty, Tarth. _ ” 

It was helping her to speak aloud and have some sort of sound in the space. Otherwise, it was just her alone, and that was too terrifying to name. Brienne was fine alone. She had been most of her life, but the idea of losing Jaime after all that they had been through just didn’t seem fair. 

She searched through the cabinets for some sort of antibiotic cream, finding something she was  _ fairly  _ sure was what she was looking for and spreading it over the long cut. It was fairly ugly, really. It sliced from his wrist to mid-forearm and it was deep and twisting. Brienne could fight, she was strong, but a steady hand had never particularly been one of her talents. 

“I’m sure you can spin it as a good story,” she said to him as she took a deep breath, ready to start sewing up his arm. 

The process was slow, and by the time she was done it was nighttime again. Just a simple twenty-four hours, and everything had shifted again. She barricaded the door of the room, and she curled up on the ground. She hadn’t slept the night before with the intrusion, so it didn’t take long for her to fall asleep. The darkness was soothing, lulling. She fell into it easily. 

* * *

She woke up to Jaime trying to sit up, and it seemed any time he moved at all he was groaning.

“Tarth, this looks like shit,” he said. “Gods, why is it so  _ bright. _ ”

She scoffed. “You’re welcome.” Her voice was still husky with sleep, and she sat up slowly as to not lose balance. 

Now that their immediate needs were seen to, it struck Brienne how ill-prepared they were for whatever was to come next. She had a handful of granola bars in her bag, but they had no food and only a little bit of water. The bike had been perfect for getting them  _ here,  _ but if they were going cross-country they needed a car. 

“You’re right, I appreciate the repair job.” He tried to lift up his arm and ended up grimacing. 

“We should probably find you a sling for that,” she said, “and I need to tape your ankle.” 

“How am I the only one of us injured?” 

She stared him down, thinking that answer enough. 

“Ah, yes. You’re a semi-truck of a human being.” She narrowed her eyes. “I honestly mean that in the nicest way possible.” 

Brienne rolled her eyes, reaching out for the medical tape and wrapping Jaime’s ankle up nicely. They were going to have to get going on step one—retrieve a car. They were pretty useless until they did that. 

“Do you think you can walk?” she asked. 

“All taped up? Certainly.” He stood up a bit wobbly, but he was able to walk fairly normally just a bit slower and uneven. 

“Then, let’s find us a car.” 

* * *

They wandered around the parking lot, trying to find something that wasn’t packed with dead bodies and held enough space. Brienne tried to peak through the windows, looking for something with low mileage. She sort of doubted whatever they ended up choosing would get them all the way to Winterfell, but it was something from before she could manage to still hold onto.

“How are we even going to get through on the highways?” Jaime asked. “Even on our way here there were too many cars piled up.” 

“That’s not exactly helpful,” she grunted as she tried to peek into the side of a Range Rover. It was hard to see anything too specifically about the specs of the car, but she decided this their best option. “How do you expect to get there exactly if we don’t drive?” 

He was leaned against the car beside them, and Brienne winced a little as she saw a booster seat in the back. She reached out a hand, and Jaime handed over the door stop and metal hanger she had searched for inside the hospital. There were a lot of things she had picked up over the years that had helped when guarding a body. She had never been more thankful. 

“I don’t know.” 

“You don’t know something? Seems like a first,” Brienne replied as she wedged the hanger through, aiming for the unlock button. “If we have to off road a bit or try to move some cars, then that's what we’ll be forced to do.” 

The door clicked open, and she couldn’t help the jovial smile that took over her face. 

“A nice pick,” Jaime said as he pushed off the car he was leaning on, stumbling slightly back to full height. “I’m hoping you know how to hotwire a car?” 

“We don’t have to,” Brienne said as she climbed into the driver’s seat. She reached into the cupholder and held up the key. “They must have been in a rush and locked it in.” 

“You clever girl,” he said in a rush of a smile. “I’m going to hobble to the passenger side now.” 

She rolled her eyes, getting the car started. “Yeah, you do that.”

* * *

“You were making fun of me earlier for breaking in through a window, and here you are siphoning gas from another car,” Brienne said.

The sky was dark, and they should really be getting off the road before it got any later, but they hadn’t been able to find any gasoline yet. Here Jaime was, pulling gas from a truck with a long tube on his stumbling feet. 

“Never underestimate the rebellions of entitled rich kids,” Jaime said as they watched the gas go. 

Brienne stared at the profile of him, thought about how much more he had proven himself to be since she met him that strange night all those weeks and, hell, now months ago when the world officially changed forever. 

He looked up at caught her gaze, sending her a soft smirk. “We need to find somewhere to spend the night.” 

She nodded. For a while, she had wondered if this was actually going to work. Him and her, travelling indefinitely. Certainly he would get sick of her at some point? Sometime before or maybe after he got on her nerves to the point she had to leave him on the side of the road, but suddenly she wasn’t so sure. They could do this, probably. 

* * *

They stopped at a sporting goods store to stock up on a few extra weapons, maybe some camping supplies, and definitely a few new shirts for Jaime.

“I thought you grabbed some when we left,” Brienne said as they pulled up. 

“I didn’t exactly have a whole lot of time to prepare,” he said. “I grabbed one, which I had to use immediately when my blood soiled the first one.” 

She locked the car, and they made their way in. “I hope you can find something that matches your complexion.”

“Oh,” he said around a smirk, “that shouldn’t be too difficult.” 

They split up to make their way through the store, and Brienne went to the weapons first. It was fairly picked over, but she found something akin to a dagger and a thigh holster to boot. She didn’t even bother to wait to put it on later, instead setting it up right away. 

Brienne looked at what else was around, trying to think what Jaime would favor. She wished she could offer him a gun, as he seemed like someone who would be able to hold one well. He was good in close fighting too, though, despite his injuries. She picked up a few options for him and went to the clothing section. 

“Any luck?” she asked as she approached, just in time to see him turn around in a blue floral Hawaiian shirt. “Holy shit.” 

Her body convulsed with laughter. She couldn’t stop it, her eyes welling with tears and her breathe seeming to be lost. When she looked up at him, his face was mostly upset with a twitch of amusement playing at the edges. 

“Everything else has been picked over. This is  _ ridiculous _ ,” he said. 

“The blue actually works quite well with your green eyes,” she said between laughs. “All those cool colors.” 

“I would pay you anything to find me a better option,” he said. “I could not imagine something worse than this.” 

“Money means nothing,” she pointed out. 

“There are others ways to pay,” he said. “And a Lannister always pays their debts.” 

She rolled her eyes, because there was something pompous about the way he said that. His eyes caught on her thigh holster, and he raised a brow. 

“You’ve done a lot better than I have, I see.” She nodded. “Anything for me?” 

“I couldn’t find anything with handles that would match your aesthetic, but hopefully something will work.” 

“Who knew you held such  _ humor  _ in your, Tarth.” 

She began to shrug when she heard sounds come from behind them. Bursting forward, she grabbed Jaime and the two of them moved further into the section and behind some signs. It sounded like a group of three people, by the way their voices bantered back and forth. 

“They have to be in here somewhere,” one said. 

“How can you know that?” 

“The car is still  _ warm _ ,” they replied. 

Jaime and Brienne made eye contact.  _ Don’t do anything stupid,  _ his eyes seemed to say. She wasn’t quite sure what hers might be replying with. His arm was still in a sling, days away from stitches being removed. Could he even throw a punch with his left hand? If these men were going to go down, it would have to be on Brienne. 

She grabbed one of the extra knives she had brought and handed him the hilt. “I’m going to go in front of them, distract them. Once they’re properly looking at me, you can sneak behind and hopefully get one in the back,” she whispered. 

“Brienne,  _ no _ ,” he said as he shook his hand. “You’re good, but this is dangerous.” 

“What choice do we have?” she asked. “See if they can be reasoned with, and if they can’t… well, I don’t intend to die here today. You have even less reason to want that, you’d die in a Hawaiian shirt.” 

His face looked pained, but the trace of a smile peaked through. “Be careful,” he said, reaching out his good hand and cupping her upper arm. 

“I’m even better than careful.” 

She moved close to the wall far enough to have a good chunk of space between her and the three men before moving closer into the aisle. Holding her hands up, she made herself known. 

“Don’t attack,” she said. She could feel her gun and her knife. She took stock of the men in front of her and how hard they would be to take down. 

The three looked at each other and laughed. Brienne wasn’t sure what was all that funny about her standing in front of them, but laughing was better than shooting or attacking. 

“A woman, right?” one said with a jape. “Haven’t seen one of those in a while.” 

“Though, you certainly don’t look how I remember them,” the other joined in. 

Brienne rolled her eyes. Men always thought they were the most creative, when in reality they all spewed the same jokes. Jaime appeared from behind, holding the knife and keeping low and quiet. His lips were pursed with anger, and she waited a beat for him to catch her eye.  _ Don’t do anything stupid,  _ she tried to echo back to him. The same sentiment from earlier. 

“You’re welcome to loot the store the same way I am, but I’ll be on my way,” she said. 

“Oh no, we don’t know about that.” The biggest of the three moved a few steps closer, and she felt her body tense up. “You have a nice car out there, and we haven’t had any new company in a while.” 

There was still about ten feet between them, and Brienne calculated it all in her head. 

“Are you sure you’d like to do that?” Brienne asked, hoping this could just end. 

They started to laugh again, and before any could answer Jaime had dove forward and stabbed one straight through the neck. Brienne reached for her gun and shot the other one closest to Jaime, not wanting to leave him open for an attack. By the time the bullet had landed, though, the leader was in front of her and tackling her to the ground. 

“I thought it would be harder to take a big girl like you down,” he said. 

He was reaching for something she couldn’t see—a knife? a gun?—when she kicked him in the groan. It gave her a second long enough to reach for that knew knife on her side and stab it straight into his gut. His eyes went wide, like he hadn’t actually expected to die. If he wasn’t a total prick, maybe Brienne would feel worse about it. 

She looked up to see Jaime in front of her, breathing heavily. Her hand reached out for her gun and brought it back to her side. She snorted. 

“What could possibly be funny about this?” he asked. 

“You’ve got blood on your shirt.” 

He looked down to the now splattered pattern. “Wow,” he deadpanned. “What a shame.” 

* * *

Sometimes while on the road they talked about nothing at all for long stretches of time. Other times, they  _ truly  _ said nothing at all and enjoyed the quiet. Every once in a while, they spotted the silence with things that were too heavy to sit on for long bouts.

Sometimes, when Brienne looked over at him, she swore it was like he was blooming from the presence of a sun he had never had. It struck her as strange for him to slowly be opening himself this way, because Brienne wasn’t entirely certain what about their predicament could be anything bolstering for him to grow open. 

Until, suddenly, she was watching him drive because after a handful of days his ankle was finally strong enough again, and she came upon the startling realization that she  _ liked _ Jaime Lannister. Truly liked him. It was sort of silly for it to be shocking, considering how much time she had spent with him and continued to do so. In a way, she had never considered the idea because she always thought they sort of put up with one another, carrying a sort of fondness bred from mutual trauma and a lack of option. 

She really was bad at thinking about her feelings sometimes, wasn’t she? When there were bigger projects at hand, it had always been easier to push aside emotion and work at the task at hand. Days had gone by, though, where she had time to think about it. Jaime Lannister may have become one of her best friends in her entire life, not only due to circumstance. 

As she watched him drive, the late-afternoon golden hour washing his features, she saw his stubbled jaw and his expressive eyes. She saw him and felt an undeniable fondness root itself further in her gut. It might be a terrible idea, to let herself care, but she had never much been someone who knew how to stop once they started. It just kept flowing, pulsing, growing. 

* * *

“Which house?” Brienne asked as they began to slow down. It was a small cul-de-sac with only three houses, so it wasn’t much of choice.

At first, Brienne had been opposed to the idea of truly stopping at a house to rest for a few days. They had been going for a while, no stopping, almost a week now. It seemed to make more sense to just keep going this close, but they were low on supplies. Not to mention it was about time to take out Jaime’s stitches, and it would probably be best to do it with a sterilized setting. 

_ Most likely, you won’t find them there,  _ Jaime had said.  _ You might feel better with a bit of rest when that happens.  _

Brienne had tried to not get angry at that idea, but it was hard. She didn’t know how to slow down, sometimes, only how to keep going. Most of her own self-worth came from her ability to follow through. She had never excelled at anything particularly that made her a star or capable of doing great things, but she was  _ strong  _ and  _ honorable  _ and  _ loyal.  _ She could use that to protect others, and that seemed to be enough. 

_ Brienne,  _ he had said after her angry silence. She wondered if he knew simply saying her name had become a way to sway her. Probably not, surely he wouldn’t sound so aggravated when forced to speak to her softly.  _ If they are there, a few days won’t change it. You can’t keep going the way you’ve been going.  _

So, here they were deciding between three houses to break into and rest for a few days. It felt wrong to be intruding into another person’s life, but this was what they had come to. 

“I pick blue,” Jaime said. 

Brienne pulled into the driveway, hoping they didn’t find anything too disastrous inside. There was only so much her heart could handle, really. She hoped she was spared that, at least.

* * *

 

“Tarth,” he called from the bathroom an hour or so later, and she begrudgingly followed the sound of his voice to find him with the medicine cabinet open. He was holding a razor in his hand, a soft smile on his lips. “I can shave.” 

“Thank you for telling me?” she said, unsure why this had been important enough to drag her away. 

He rolled his eyes. “I can’t do it with my hand.” 

“Lucky for you, you have two. What a blessing.” She turned around, but she stopped when his good hand grabbed onto her upper arm. 

“Please,” he said. “I just need this one normal thing.”

It was the please that truly did it. Brienne didn’t see Jaime pleading for things. It always seemed as if he asked for what he thought he deserved, hell  _ demanded  _ it. A please was an emotionally vulnerable spot Brienne had never seen him venture into. She was too weak to deny it. 

“Okay, just… sit in the kitchen. I’ll get a bowl of water.”

He nodded, clearly grateful. After she got the water and brought the shaving cream out to the kitchen table, she set up in front of Jaime. It took no more than a second of standing in front of his seated position to realize she was far too tall to do this standing. She tugged out a chair and positioned it in front of him, sitting close enough their knees were touching. 

She tried not to show her discomfort at the proximity, or as she spread the shaving cream over his face. Brienne simply wasn’t much used to physicality in this way. It was hard not to internalize the cruelty of others until she shrunk into herself when it came to human touch. 

“Don’t cut me,” he said as she began approaching with the razor. 

She narrowed her eyes, and he shrugged in response. Her back was already aching, and she scooted the chair as close as she could manage so she didn’t have to hunch forward. To steady herself, she brought her left hand up to his neck before she began to cut away his beginnings of a beard. 

Honestly, she didn’t get why he wanted it off so badly. She thought it was sort of handsome. It gave him a touch of gruffness which was properly suited for the new world order. It wasn’t her choice, though, and she certainly wasn’t going to voice any of those thoughts aloud. 

“I was worried after seeing my stitches this was sort of a gamble, but I feel very safe in your durable hands.” 

“Please stop talking.” 

His lips curved at the edges, but he kept his lips clamped shut. The room was silent but for their breaths and the sound of the razer against his skin, the scraping sound as he was cut clean. 

“You’re not actually the first man I’ve given a shave to, you know,” she said a minute later, rinsing the razer. When she looked back over, he was raising a brow that looked much too satisfied for her liking, and she scoffed. “Whatever you’re thinking, it’s certainly not that.” 

He paused a minute in the silence, then he cleared his throat. “Oh, I’m sorry, was the ban on my speech lifted? I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to engage.”

“I’m the one holding a razor.” 

He just laughed a little, still attempting to keep his face still. “Who did you shave then?” he asked after a beat. 

Brienne thought about the memory that sat in her head, revelling in it though it was sort of sad and made her feel a bit sore from the past. It was one of those moments that she still held onto, though, because as strange and painful as it might have felt, it was also powerful. It brought her to a place with her father, one of her last experiences with him, and it had been  _ good.  _

“My dad,” Brienne said, deciding she had held onto the memory for only herself long enough. “It was the last time I saw him cognizant before he died. He just wanted to look fresh, but his hands shook so much. You could tell he tried, though, because there were cuts all over the length of his neck. Just little red nicks.” 

“As stubborn as his daughter, then.”

Brienne felt her lips tug at the edges. “Something like that, yeah.We didn’t always get along the best, him and I. We had different ideas about what I should be doing with my life, but he made me strong, helped sculpt me into me.” 

Jaime hummed seemingly to not move his face as Brienne shaved above his upper lip. As she pulled back, he asked, “When did he die?” 

“About six months before the plague hit. He didn’t go nicely, but I’m glad he left before all of this, I think.” Brienne pursed her lips, getting closer as she did the other side of his jaw. Her sense of pride had taken over, and even if she had been reluctant to do this originally now she was attempting to get it just so. She had never really known how to do a job half-assed. “There, you should be done.” 

She pulled back slightly, eyeing to see if there were any spots she had missed. It looked clean, though, and she let her hand drop finally. As she met Jaime’s eyes, she realized how close she had really been this whole time. Just inches away. She could feel his breath brush her face. 

“What do you say? Am I looking positively debonair?” His lips were tilted into a smirk, and Brienne could picture him so well in the before. The confidence he wore, the arrogance. What must it be like to know you were that attractive and that the world worked differently because of it? 

But maybe that wasn’t ideal either. Maybe people decided exactly what you were before they even got a glimpse of anything more from you—pretty, dumb, everything handed to you on a silver platter. Brienne hadn’t found many benefits to being ugly, but her opinion in other’s eyes usually could only go up. 

She rolled her eyes. “Don’t go fishing for compliments, Jaime.” 

She was about to move back and away, but his free hand reached out and grabbed her forearm. “Thank you, Brienne. Truly.” 

His eyes were looking so fully into hers that Brienne thought for the briefest of moments he might dip forward and kiss her. It was ridiculous, really, there had never been any signs of that in their relationship and there probably was even less of a chance of Brienne finding someone at the end of the world then there ever had been in the before. He looked at her with such sincerity, though, and she was sure she could see the desperate plea to be good in his eyes that she knew he didn’t think existed within himself. 

He cleared his throat, and Brienne wanted to shrivel away into herself as he sat back straight and she finally rushed back. It wasn’t as if he could hear her thoughts, but she was certain he must know somehow as if it had come across her face. 

“I’m going to finish rifling through the kitchen,” she said as she stood. 

His face was distant, and she watched as he ran a hand over his freshly shaved chin. What was he thinking over? She wondered. He looked sort of forlorn, lost in another moment. “Sounds good,” he said finally, looking up and giving her a small smile. 

It made her heart clench, though she wasn’t sure why, so she turned away. 

* * *

For the first time since leaving the safe house (it felt ridiculous to refer to it as that, considering how almost the entirety of her time there all it had felt was full of tension), Brienne slept for a full night of sleep. It was nice to be in a bed again, to try to cook something resembling a meal instead of puncturing open cans and surviving off of granola bars.

The best part, truthfully, was that for some odd reason the house had a functioning water tank. Jaime had taken a shower the first day, still filled with grime and blood though he had been able to wipe most of it off. Brienne had waited until the second so she could be fully rested and truly enjoy it, watching Jaime leave the house to scavenge next door, for her turn. 

The water wouldn’t be particularly warm, but Brienne could not have cared less. It was just the beauty of some sense of normalcy, and the opportunity to run shampoo through her hair until it was properly washed out. To get a moment to feel her whole body clean instead of just swiping in the worst spots so she didn’t smell too bad and calling that enough. 

“Brienne? You wouldn’t— oh.” 

Brienne opened her eyes, and there Jaime was staring sort of awestruck at her in the doorway.  _ Her _ , who was naked and  _ that  _ particular realization had just hit in. 

“Get out!” she screamed, covering herself up the best she could. 

Jaime turned around quickly, clearing his throat in an attempt to regain composure seemingly. “I didn’t quite hear the water, that was my bad. The door was slightly open, and I just wanted—”

“Jaime,” she said. “We are not talking about this right now. Just… leave.” 

He stumbled over a few more words before he reached behind him to close the door and disappear. Brienne’s heart was still beating rapidly, and she turned the water off and reached for her towel. As she stepped toward the mirror, drying off her hair, she paused to think about what Jaime had just seen. 

Her skin was delicately pale, always had been, but there were a good amount of freckles trailing over her skin. Frankly, she wasn’t much to look at. She was a strong body, but it lacked femininity. Her hair had grown a little longer, still not touching her shoulders, but she imagined it would get there in the near future. It was the longest it had been in years, and maybe that made her look a bit more womanly? Not that she cared, because she had given up on caring about that a long time ago. 

If Jaime had been hoping to be stuck with someone who was going to offer some sort of relief for him when all the other other prospects had gone—a womanly companion to fall into his bed, to be his love—he must have been quite disappointed in her. She was just Brienne. Sturdy. Neutral. It was so terribly hard to be a girl in this world, and she had known early on that she was never going to win any Beauty Pageants. 

Which, was fine. She would never look at herself and love her lack of curves, or get to think about her beauty with makeup on (it did nothing but make her look something like a circus performer), but she could look at her sturdy thighs and her muscled biceps and  _ know _ she was strong. She was a woman who could take care of herself. 

Gods, what did any of this matter. They would stumble over the exchange and forget about it. This wasn’t going to change a thing. 

* * *

“Tarth,” he said as she was bent over his arm, removing his stitches. “I really am—ow!”

She smiled to herself, humming at the pain. 

“You did that on purpose, didn’t you? You vengeful woman.” 

“You’ve seen my tits. I pulled out a stitch a little too hard. I think we can move on now.” 

His face was covered in something a little like awe, that same look she could have sworn he had given her when he caught her in the shower if it had made any sense at all, when she looked up to give him a little smile. 

“If that's what you’d like,” he said with a nod. “We’ll move on.” 

Brienne was at least a little confused with the wording, but she nodded back. She bent over again and returned to work. 

* * *

The floorboards outside her bedroom creaked, and Brienne reached for her gun. By the time the door opened, she had it held up in front of herself.

“Woah, girl,” he said as he threw his hands up. 

“Motherfucker,” she said, placing it back on the bedside table and trying to capture her breath. “You really need to work on your entrances.” She stopped and watched him standing only a hair inside of the doorway in his boxers and shirtless. “What are you doing here?” 

That propelled him into action. He walked over to the other side of the bed and slipped underneath the covers. 

“ _ What  _ are you doing?” she asked. 

“Don’t be greedy,” he said. “This bed is big enough for two.” 

“And what exactly was wrong with your room?” 

“It was too quiet, and it smelled strangely of mothballs. It was giving me a headache.”

Brienne groaned. She wished she could stand her ground more with Jaime, but he was too good at weaseling his way into that soft spot of emotions. 

“Fine, but if you hog the blankets I will be forced to bring the gun back out.” 

He didn’t even bother the threat with a response, choosing to burrow into the bed instead and humming with content. “Goodnight, Brienne.” 

She sighed. “Goodnight, Jaime.” 

* * *

The next day when Brienne woke up, she could feel Jaime’s eyes on her. She opened an eye, frowning when she caught his look. There was something about it that was hard to name, but it almost looked regretful. She couldn’t decide what that could possibly be about.

“We have to leave today, don’t we?” he asked. 

She nodded. “We can’t stay forever.”

“Could be nice, though, couldn’t it?” he asked. “Have a house, get a garden going. Something like the safe house but better.” 

Brienne actually thought about it. The world wasn’t going back to the way it had been any time soon, but that didn’t mean they had to move forever. There could be a world where they settled, found a sense of peace. The safe house hadn’t been a bad idea, it just hadn’t been the right people or the right format. 

The idea that Jaime seemed content to live that reality with her, the way they were now, made her chest stretch and tighten. She wanted that future for them someday. They deserved it after their suffering, after their tragedy. Brienne breathed in deeply, and she pushed up to sit. 

It was a nice dream, but it wasn’t time for it yet. 

“Someday,” she said as she looked over her shoulder to give him a smile. He gave a sort of sad smile back. 

“Brienne…” he trailed off, and she tried to see the truth in his eyes. 

He didn’t use her real name that frequently, and usually only in times of some sense of emotional vulnerability. Or a plea of some kind. It made her pause, try to dig out what was happening more intensely. 

“What?” she asked. 

His eyes looked so fully into her own, but then he shook his head and that emotion seemed to shake away too. She was left wondering what it possibly could have been.

“Nothing,” he said. “We should probably loot that other house before we go, though. There might be some useful stuff.” 

“Sounds good. I’ll see you downstairs,” she said, purposefully eyeing the door.

He nodded, and he almost looked a bit flustered as he went to the door. He shut it behind him, softly, and Brienne sat in the silence it left. 

* * *

Most of the time, Brienne got a little nervous at the way Jaime drove. He wasn’t  _ bad,  _ but he drove as if he was on his way to vacation or it was simply his daily commute. One of his hands would be on the wheel, the other resting at his side, and he looked casual the whole way through. There had never been a time where he put them in any actual danger, but Brienne couldn’t help but be a little extra vigilant when he took over—just in case a car appeared from nowhere or there was something else on the road.

“Stop,” he said. 

“I didn’t do anything,” she said. The sun was bright through the window, and she reached down to throw on a pair of sunglasses. He held out his own hand, and she grabbed his for him. 

“I can feel your worry,” he said. “In my many years of life, I have never  _ once  _ been in an accident. Also, haven’t you heard? Traffic is a thing of the past. There are considerably less drivers on the road.”

“You just…” She motioned toward him, unsure how to vocalize his thoughts. “Everything you do is  _ casual _ .” 

“And that's a problem?” He raised a brow, about to wait for an answer, but then his face dropped a little. “It’s a defense mechanism, probably. If I look like I don’t care about anything, people can’t hurt me.” 

“That was honest,” she said, a little bit shocked by it. “I get it, though.” 

He scoffed. The highway stretched in front of them empty and quiet. Even with the windows open a hair, there failed to be many sounds of nature. “You can’t possibly.” 

“Don’t presume to know me,” she said with her voice on edge. 

He paused. “You don’t talk much about your life before.” 

She tilted her face, feeling the sun warmth its edges, and turned in the seat to see Jaime fully. Her back leaned against the car door, and she saw him shift slightly under the gaze. Brienne wondered if his casual demeanor helped to keep people from looking at him, and if that was why suddenly he seemed a little uncertain under her eyes. Or maybe it was just her, the conversation they were about to have. 

“You’ve never asked,” she said. 

He nodded. “Fair. So, tell me about your defense mechanism.” 

“I’m ugly,” she said. “I’m ugly. I’m manish. I’m not always well-spoken. I’m smart, but not all that creative.”

His face tightened, but he didn’t speak over her. 

“If I claim it, declare it before anyone else can say anything,” she said. “Then they don’t get to make me the butt of any joke.” 

His jaw tightened, and she wondered if she had said something wrong. It was the truth, though,  _ her  _ truth, and if her and Jaime were going to continue to learn more about each other it was one of the biggest. 

“I don’t think you’re a joke in the slightest,” he said. He cleared his throat, and she wondered if he felt more vulnerable having to say that with her watching his jaw, his face, his profile. “You… You’re the best of them.” 

Brienne took a deep breath in, and she let her gaze drop to the landscape outside. She closed her eyes for a minute and let the words sink in. When she had first met Jaime she hadn’t been that impressed. He seemed contrary, entitled, and now she had come to a place where his opinion mattered to her. Not even that, but to hear him say that hit her in a way that seemed to sit within her. 

When she looked back, he was eyeing her from the side. He trained his eyes forward again. 

“You’re better than you know, Jaime,” she said. 

His body tensed, and she watched his jaw tick. “I don’t know about that.” 

She opened her mouth to argue, but there was something about the tightness of his response that stopped her. So, feeling a sort of boldness, a sort of fondness, a sort of care for him that she wasn’t sure she would be able to shake, she reached out and squeezed his wrist. Her fingers felt the heat and then pulled back. 

Unwilling to dwell any longer or to discuss them, she turned toward the window. At least that way she wouldn’t have to worry about his driving any longer. 

* * *

The sky was beginning to shift, and Brienne could feel herself drifting in and out of consciousness. She was tired, somehow the road and the sun had seemed to drain her energy. For a moment Jaime had sung a few words of something, his voice soft as if it was truly meant to be just for him, but by the time her eyes were open again his face was still. Maybe it had been more a dream than anything.

Then the car stopped in the middle of the highway, and she slowly came back to the surface. Both of Jaime’s hands were on the wheel, tight enough for her to see the white of his knuckles, and Brienne felt the floor of her stomach fall away. Something was not right. 

“Jaime?” she asked. 

“I can’t keep going.” He turned to look at her finally, and she saw now he looked wrecked. 

Brienne wanted to reach out, but he was out the door before she could reach. She unbuckled and followed right behind, the two of them illuminated by the headlights and the soft setting sun from above. 

“What are you on about?” she asked. “We’re, what? Four hours from Winterfell? We can stop for the night, if you’re too tired.”

“No, I…” He was pacing, back and forth, back and forth, but he stopped finally. As if he realized there was no point in being manic, and he took a deep breath to stand in front of her. “I need to go South.” 

“What’s…” She tried to think it over and remember if there was any sign of what he would need to do. “Whatever it is, we can do both, Jaime.”

“No,” he said again, this time firmer. He almost looked like he didn’t want to say it, but then why was he? “Cersei went to Joffrey, and they’re south.” 

For a moment, the world seemed to topple. This wasn’t all that shocking, really. They didn’t talk about Cersei much, but she knew she was still out there possibly. The stories, though, always held the sort of unsaid tension that Brienne associated with distress. Things you wanted to move on from. It had never seemed healthy, but with the unhealthy often was tied obsession. It was like an addiction, really, and maybe bringing him this close had been like letting him see the next hit. 

It didn’t mean she didn’t feel betrayed, though, watching his wild eyes and knowing he wanted to leave ( _ her,  _ she didn’t even dare to add in her own head). 

“So, you’re just going to follow a possible ghost?” 

He scoffed, ran a hand through his hair, before looking back at her. “How is it any different than what you’re doing? You’re chasing down two girls you barely know, and you certainly don’t know if they’re alive.” 

“Don’t excuse your actions by belittling mine.” Brienne kept her voice as even as possible, but she could feel the fury rise up. Just hours ago he had told her she was the best of them, and now he was leaving. “Is that what you almost said this morning? That you were planning on—” Her voice caught in her throat, and she looked at him. Really looked at him. She tried to decide how cruel he was capable of being. “Was that the only reason you came with me? Did you ever intend on following this through?” 

His mouth opened and closed, opened and closed. He looked dumb. She wondered if he even knew the truth to that question. 

“The sad thing,” she began, taking a step closer, “is that you really are better than you know, even now. You really, really can’t see it, though. She has you stuck in these same old patterns. Don’t you ever get tired of it, Jaime?” 

“I don’t want to leave you,” he said, and it was hard for her to tell if he really meant it. 

She breathed, and it was that sensation of pity that seemed to calm her. This, here, was a man capable of good. She had seen it with her own eyes, had felt it with her own heart. But until he broke from that woman he would never be able to  _ be _ that. There were parts of her, undoubtedly, that broke to know he would leave. They were silly parts, though, parts that had loved him too tenderly. 

Women like her were not meant for romance. Women like her were not loved by beautiful men with terrible smiles. 

“I don’t even care that you’re leaving me,” she said, her voice strangely calm. She could tell it unsettled him. “I’ve always been capable of doing this on my own. I  _ care  _ that you’re leaving to follow her.” 

He clamped his jaw shut. “You couldn’t understand.”

Brienne tried to send him a smile, but it was nothing more than tired. “I really can’t.” 

His face was unreadable, and the sun was setting quicker now. The two of them were nearly entirely lit by the headlights of the car, and it cast bizarre shadows across their faces. They were funhouse versions of themselves. There was no point in trying to get any further in this conversation, because Brienne knew none of it would satisfy her. 

“You saved my life. I owe you a debt,” he said. 

Her heart went to speak before her head could catch up, and she almost said he owed her nothing, but then he thought about the Stark girls. She thought about Sansa with her red hair and her gorgeous smile. 

“If you find Joffrey,” she said, “and he knows something about Sansa. Something that could help find her, keep her safe. That's all I can ask of you.” 

_ That's all I have the privilege to _ , she thought. He nodded, apparently unable to find his words. Brienne felt like they could keep sparring, words or actions, but what was the point? It wouldn’t change that she half-loved him. It wouldn’t change that his heart couldn’t commit to her, whether that be friendship or that impossible sense of possibility of more. It didn’t change anything. 

“Goodbye, Jaime,” she said, and she dipped forward to give a brief kiss on his cheek. She wasn’t sure why it came to mind, considering the idea of reaching out to touch his wrist had been overwhelming only hours earlier. 

She didn’t wait for more. The wind whistled, and she turned away from him. If that was his path, if he wanted to leave, that was his choice. Brienne went to the back and took his bag out, stuffing it with some of the food they had found earlier. Then she set it on the ground and made her way to the driver’s seat. 

For only a second did she look back, to watch his face as he mouthed goodbye in return. She was almost glad she hadn’t had to actually hear him say it, as if that would have somehow broken her more. How did you go back to silence after having a person near you, around you, practically inside your own head? 

Oddly enough, she thought of her father. He was a brusque man, a practical one, and when she had been young and learning she would always be astonished with the things she was meant to do next.  _ How am I supposed to do that?  _ she would ask in astonishment. 

_ Carefully _ , he would reply calmly, sometimes almost jokingly. No matter the task or situation. It wasn’t undoable, she just had to take it step by step, calmly, carefully. 

_ How do you go on without him?  _ she thought. 

_ Carefully _ , she heard his voice echo. 

* * *

Brienne continued on to Winterfell. She did not think about Jaime on the side of the road. She did not think about the months of before, and how much had changed around her. The obvious—the world order, the people she would see, the people she  _ lost _ . The less so—feeling stronger in her power, acceptance of this world, Jaime. Jaime, Jaime,  _ Jaime _ .

She did not think about it. She did not dare let herself, and it was easy when she arrived to the big house with the feeling of anticipation tickling at her stomach. Most likely, there wouldn’t be anyone here. She had to remind herself of that, but she couldn’t deny she was hoping for  _ something.  _ Something to make all that she had been through worth it. It was silly to let herself hope so much, this wasn’t a time for hope. Maybe she just needed—one thing she could hold onto. 

The front door was left open. Brienne walked through easily, her hand on her gun in case. It struck her, suddenly, how much emptiness was in this world now. How many people had really perished? How many were left? There was a horrible loneliness that carved into her. 

After walking around, it was clear there was no one there. She walked to the backyard, and she saw two graves. There was the barest amount of grass covering them, but it was clear these were plague graves. Brienne sunk to her knees between the two of them, noticing the rocks now with names carved in. 

_ Catelyn Stark. Rickon Stark.  _

For the first time since the world ended, Brienne let herself cry. She fell into the pity, the sadness, the death. She cried for the Starks and Renly and Loras and Myrcella. She cried for herself. The tears kept coming, and she laid her hands into that dirt that even months later didn’t feel quite set. 

* * *

It was hard to tell how much time had passed when she finally pushed off the ground, her body muddy and sore and tired. The night had already fallen when she had gotten there, and it had only managed to get darker since. On weary limbs, she went back inside to find a place to lay.

Brienne took her time walking through the halls, spying in the bedrooms, but it all felt wrong. There were ghosts everywhere. The bathtubs were all filled with water, and she wondered who in the household had predicted how badly things would get and that they might need it. Probably Catelyn, but had it been before or after she had taken ill? Was she still trying to protect them all as she knew her life was ending? Undoubtedly, she had used some of those minutes to call  _ her. _

Either way, Brienne said a small thanks for the wonderful, fierce woman and how she was able to keep helping people even now. She sat in one of the bathrooms and wiped herself clean. Brienne stood in front of the mirror—bare and cold. Her skin was pale, goose-fleshed, and she stared at the gangly way her hair fell long. It wasn’t her, and she reached for a scissors. She cut it shorter, until it fell closer to the top of her ears. Running a hand through it, she finally released a long breathe. 

Brienne Tarth. Strong. Durable. Dependable. She found the largest couch and fell asleep there, not wanting to disturb the beds. In the morning, she would get up and go again. She would keep her honor, her loyalty. If not, what else did she have left? 

* * *

There were some things that could be taken to fill her car fuller before leaving, and they had a big truck in the garage Brienne was able to fill her own tank from. There was an extra gas tank she took gratefully. She searched the office and pulled out information on all their colleges, trying her best to ignore the picture frames sitting on the desk. It hurt to see them smiling so, unaware of the horrors that would soon follow.

It made sense to try for Sansa first, but Brienne couldn’t quite deal with the idea of heading toward the same college Jaime had left her for. There wasn’t any time constraints, really, so Brienne figured it was good and fine if she took a small detour. 

Brienne went to visit her childhood home, though it hadn’t even been hers anymore by the time the plague hit. She had sold it after her father died, and when she walked through the halls it was stranger’s belongings that decorated the walls. There was nothing for her there, and she went to the graveyard. She wanted to leave a small something on her father’s grave, so she picked some wild flowers and laid them delicately across. 

When she stood up after whispering words to her father, she saw a figure at the end of the court. He was a fair height with dark hair, probably early twenties. They stood there, staring at each other, until he lifted a hand and gave an unsure wave. It seemed sort of silly to her, and she couldn’t help but find the humor. 

“I’ve got a chili going,” he said, his voice echoing over the land and the dead between them. “You’re welcome to join.” 

This was the first good person Brienne had met since everyone started dying. There had been Myrcella and Jaime, maybe, but everyone else… so many monsters. She couldn’t help a small smile. 

“Okay,” she said with a nod. He smiled back. 

* * *

His name was Podrick, and he had been here since his father died the first day. It was a particularly peaceful place, he had said, since no one really bothered to come see the dead when everyone was dying. He had spent the first month working on the gravestone of his father, who now laid buried in the earth on the side of his small house, and the time since taking care of the graves.

“Why?” she asked. 

He shrugged. “I didn’t have much else to do.” Then he ran this spoon through his chili, watching it distractedly, before he looked back up and said with certainty, “It made me sad to know no one was going to care about any of them anymore. I figured the best I could do was be someone who did.” 

She respected that, beyond measure, and after that the conversation was easier. Brienne would never be as skilled at talking as say Jaime, but with Podrick she found it easy enough. They were both a bit awkward, clearly coming from quiet upbringings. He offered her a guest room to stay, and she did. 

When she left the next day, he had a bag packed. “I can only cook a little, and I’m not much of a fighter really. But I’d like to come and help,” he said. “If you’ll have me.” 

Brienne couldn’t really say no to that, and from then on where she went Podrick went, too. 

* * *

They went to Sansa’s college.  _ Nothing.  _ They diverted north to try their aunt’s.  _ Nothing.  _ They drove, long stretches of road, to get back to the west coast. It felt ridiculous to be traveling all the way back from where she had been before, but that was where Arya had been at school so go they must.

The Range Rover finally broke down half a week later in the middle of nowhere. What horrible luck. Podrick and her walked for days until they were able to find something else, and he surprised her when he was the one able to hotwire a car. 

He shrugged. “My dad’s car was a piece of trash, and he never knew where his keys were.” 

She clapped his back, feeling a sense of affection for him, and was glad she didn't have to do this alone. It was nice to have someone to discuss the little things, try to plan a strategy. Since he had heard the story, since he had joined this quest with her, he had seemed to latch onto the possibility of finding the Starks the same way Brienne did. 

It was funny, how all someone needed was some purpose. They turned the world into a fairytale, just trying to find a happy ending. 

* * *

“Do you ever look around at the road and the emptiness and think it might all be a dream?” Podrick asked one day as she had let him drive. “That this can’t possibly be reality?”

“Some times, yes.” She watched the landscape pass by. “Do you miss the world before?” 

He nodded. “Yes. Sometimes, though, I can’t help thinking this is all simpler. The month before the plague hit, we couldn’t even figure out how to pay the next semester of my college. We had no money left for anything. Now all I do is survive, stay alive.” 

“I hope we can find something a little more than that,” she said. She thought of Jaime that morning they had woken up next to one another, and the way he had suggested the possibility of what it would be like to stay.  _ Something like the safe house but better.  _

Podrick gave her a soft smile. “Me too.” 

* * *

By the time they arrived to Braavos and the University, with all their starts and stops, it had been roughly a month since Brienne saw Podrick across the cemetery and he gave her a simple wave. Time was strange, specifically when they spent so much of it in cars or walking. It seemed like a lifetime, just her and Pod, on the road.

Maybe that was what happened when you spent all your time with only one person. Brienne would look at Pod, only having known him for a handful of weeks, and already she felt a sort of love for him. Because of him, she hadn’t had to do this all alone. 

“What if we don’t find something today?” Podrick asked. 

Brienne parked the car, and she felt a sort of positivity take over. They were enjoying the vestiges of Fall. Winter would come, soon, and it would be harder to trek around. There were no snow plows anymore, and it would be worse to go on foot if they were forced to do it. Now that she paused to think about it, there were a lot of things Brienne would have to consider. 

But now, in the moment, she held onto the hope that they would find something about Arya’s whereabouts. If not, though, they still had options. There were still other ways to go. It wasn’t hopeless, yet. 

“We keep going,” she said. “We’ll find something, eventually.” 

* * *

They go, of all places, to Brienne’s apartment to spend the night. More bizarre than her childhood home or the roads or the desolate stores that used to bustle, was entering into her apartment with a key she still had for some reason and seeing it all just the way she left it. There were old family pictures on her walls, and there was still an unwashed bowl of cereal in the sink.

She had left knowing she would be gone for a while, but she had thought it was all something that would pass in a few days, maybe a week. It wasn’t until she was on the highway and saw a car swerve off the road from someone dying inside, that she really started to realize what was coming. 

“Make yourself comfortable,” she said, and Podrick fell onto the couch. 

Brienne went to her hallway closet and grabbed out her camping supplies, finding her burning stove and a few cans of gas left over from the trip she had made up North for a hiking vacation. She couldn't help but laugh, thinking about how she had willingly thrown herself into the wilderness when often now she was left with little choice. 

“I’m far too afraid to open that fridge, but that doesn’t mean we can’t eat something warm tonight,” she said as she passed him in the living room. 

He held his hands up in a silent cheer, and they shared a smile. 

* * *

She had only just fallen asleep when she heard a sound from the hallway, and she reached for her gun and went to the front door. Podrick was fast asleep on the couch, seemingly unaware of what was happening. Stopping to look through the eyehole on her door, she held the gun in her hand tighter.

Then her breath stopped, and she unlocked the door to step out. It had only been little more than a month, but he already seemed physically different. His beard hair was trimmed, but he wore it proudly. His shoulders were slumped forward, less of his regal stance. He was just as handsome, and her whole body was pulled back as if he had never left and hurt her. 

“Jaime…” She wondered what her face must look like—eyes round, lips trembling, a nervousness that must have been ridiculous. Almost, nearly, she wanted to reach out and hit him, but that didn’t feel right, either. 

“Sh.” He stepped closer, only a hair away now. God, how fucking ridiculous. 

“You can’t just  _ shush  _ me. You left and now you’re back without any explanation.” 

“Brienne,” he said, that familiar, infuriating smirk on his face. “I am back, and for just a second I want to enjoy the privilege of telling you how I’ve missed you.” 

“I’m not some stupid, silly girl, Jaime. You can’t just—“

“I mean it.” He reached out a hand, cupping her cheek. It was clear neither was quite that good at physical intimacy, had never grown accustomed to it. They wore it like ill-fitting hand-me-downs, trying to learn how to love with too few examples. “I have missed you terribly.” 

“I’m glad the plague didn’t get you.” 

Jaime tutted. “Come on, you can do better than that, can’t you?”

“I’m glad your sister didn’t kill you,” she tried instead. 

He tilted his head, nodded a few times. “I guess that’s more fair. Give me something, Brienne.” 

That was what did it, didn't it? The utterance of her name. It had always made her weak when he was vulnerable enough to reach out with that one word— _ her  _ name. Because the way he said it was something deep, intimate. It was when he was done with the bullshit, and he wanted her to know this was serious. 

She gulped, averting her eyes before landing them on him. His green eyes as piercing as ever. “I missed you, too,” she said.

“Terribly?” he asked, reaching out a hand that fluttered a fraction from her face, landing on the side of her neck. 

His voice was too soft. Brienne wasn’t used to men, people, speaking to her so softly. She tried to catch her breath, and instead she leaned forward enough and then their foreheads were touching and it seemed to loosen something inside of her. Why was she grown to make it so hard for her to take this? 

“You really do think too highly of yourself,” she whispered back. Her eyes were closed, and she couldn’t see the look he was giving her. They were too close, anyways, it would have been ridiculous to try to search his features when it would have left her eyes crossed and the vision blurry. 

“I thought it was you who had said I was better than I knew,” he said as they pulled back. 

Brienne opened her eyes, and when she looked at him she could have sworn his eyes moved to her lips. That was ridiculous. She was tired of the banter, though, in this moment she couldn’t deny she had missed him.  _ Terribly.  _ Reaching forward, he seemed to sense the movements himself and then they were hugging. 

It almost couldn’t be called that, the way they clung to one another. As if letting go might admit this wasn’t real. As if the moment might slip right from their fingers. 

“I’m still sort of mad,” she said. 

“Fair,” he replied. 

“And I want to know everything—what happened, how you got here.” 

“Fair,” repeated. He nodded into her shoulder. 

She pulled back, and she smiled. “First, though, I really just want some sleep.” 

He smiled back. “Fair.” 

* * *

When Brienne woke up the next morning to see Jaime sleeping on the other side of the bed, she wasn’t entirely sure she was actually awake. The sun slotted through the window, and it glistened off his dirty blonde hair. Creeping a little closer, she could see some gray hairs peeking through. That suited him, too, she thought. Though, she was fairly sure he could make just about anything look handsome.

One of his eyes opened, and he raised a brow. “Do you like what you see?” 

She rolled her eyes, and there was something about that which seemed to please him uncontrollably. His smile widened, and as she began to flip over to scoot out and away from this embarrassing and, frankly, aggravating situation, he grabbed onto her waist and pulled her back into him. His forehead dipped against the base of her neck and the dip of her back. 

“Just for a second,” he said. 

Her body was clenched, unsure how to melt into something like this. She was still mad and confused, and she had no idea how to properly explain why there was now a man in her bed when there had not been one when they fell asleep to Podrick. And yet, there was a warmth from him that she couldn’t deny she had missed. A warmth that seemed to seep right into her, make her feel fuller, more hopeful. 

He was the worst for a lot of reasons, but he was especially the worst for that. How had a morally gray, selfish man like him been the one to unlock something so unknowable within herself? It made no sense. 

Love doesn’t make sense, she thought to herself. It didn’t frighten her as much as she thought it might, to admit that to herself. To think in her head without blocking it or qualifying it— _ you love Jaime Lannister.  _

She backed into him just a little, and she placed her arms over his still around her waist. 

“You are a horrible man, Jaime,” she whispered, but it almost sounded like  _ I love you.  _ His arms tightened, and she wondered if he knew. “I’m glad you’re back.” 

He kissed her nape, and she was glad she was turned away from him because her face must have looked something ridiculous. It was too tender for a woman like her. 

“Let’s go discuss, shall we? I’m sure that gentleman caller you’ve replaced me with will want to know all about what’s happened.”

Brienne elbowed him, and she laughed at the indignation that crossed his face. She saw her face in the mirror—red and freckled and still creased from the pillow during sleep. Yet, with the way the sun hit her and the smile filled her face, she would almost say there was something sort of pretty about that. 

There was no way to take away the joy that sat inside of her. No matter what way the world turned, no matter what was taken from her. She  _ was  _ good, and that was beautiful in a way. She loved that about herself. 

* * *

“So,” Brienne said, the words rolling out of her mouth slow, “you’re telling me your sister started a cult?”

The three of them formed a triangle as they sat at her round kitchen table, all nursing cups of coffee they had been able to make over the camping stove with what was left of the gas. Brienne hadn’t realized how much she had missed coffee. Or simply the ability to hold it in her hands, the steam wafting up, as she listened to someone else speak. 

“I’m not entirely sure it was her intention, but Joffrey sort of pushed it in that direction.” He ran a hand over his face, and Brienne could tell how tired he was. “It was a dictatorship, but everyone there seemed as if they’d drank the kool-aid so to speak. That or they were far too terrified to step out of line. People who didn’t listen, well…” he trailed off, wincing. “It’s not good.” 

“Did she let you leave?” Podrick asked. His words were bold, but as soon as Jaime’s eyes were back on him he seemed to shrink a little. Brienne reached out a hand and squeezed his wrist, trying to let him know he was fine. 

“No, it wasn’t easy to get out. I had to go in the dead of the night,” Jaime said. His eyes were trained on the wood of the kitchen table as he spoke, his jaw tight as if it took effort to get every word out. “My brother was there for a while, but Joffrey died—probably one of those terrified people thinking the horror would end with only a little more bloodshed—and Cersei thought it was Tyrion. He had been there, and he escaped before she could kill him. I… He’s out there, somewhere.” 

Brienne reached out across the table and took his hands into hers. When his eyes looked up, she made sure hers could convey everything she needed him to know. “We’ll find him. We can.” He had that look in his eyes, the one that sometimes made her feel like he must be in awe of her, but she had never really believed it. Her own eyes must have been searching for something they wanted. 

“Sorry, but uh— How did you find us exactly?” Podrick asked, clearing his throat. 

Brienne pulled back her hands and watched Jaime run a hand over his stubble. 

“I knew the path you guys must have been taking, but it was hard. I had no signs of you until I saw that Range Rover on the side of the highway. You left something in it,” Jaime said, and he reached down in his bag to pull out a wallet he slid across the table. “It was a stupid hope, but once I saw your address I knew it would be a good stopping point after Braavos. I guess I just got lucky.” 

When she was growing up, she had never been taught religion. Maybe little bits from her nanny when she was young and before her father realized the nanny did nothing but make Brienne want to revolt more, but her father had lost all touch with any higher power once Brienne’s mother had died. Brienne only believed in what she could do herself—the strength of her body, the strength of her mind, the strength of her will. She couldn’t help but wonder, though, if there was someone above there looking out for all of them. 

How else could she be sitting beside Podrick? Could Jaime have found his way back to her when everything else in the universe said it was impossible? It gave her that flare of hope again, that she would find the Starks and make sure they were safe. That they could find Tyrion, maybe. That they could do something good and start something better. 

Brienne wanted there to be a life for the after, for all the good people she knew were still out there.  

Jaime leaned back in his chair, sending an infuriating smirk in Brienne’s direction. “But what have you two been up to? Don’t skimp on any of the details.” 

* * *

Her closet was fairly useless, though there were a few shirts and some leggings that would be worth taking. She changed into a black pair and threw on a tank top, layering it with an old roller derby sweatshirt from when she had been in a league during college.

“Can I steal a shirt?” Jaime asked from the doorway. 

Brienne certainly hoped he hadn’t been standing there watching her change, since that was pretty creepy, but she trusted that Jaime was enough of a gentleman to have let her know. He stepped in and sat on the edge of her bed. It looked so odd to see him there, so firmly planted in the life of before, despite that they had already slept together there last night. 

Was there ever a world where the two of them met before it all turned to shit? Could she imagine meeting Jaime somewhere—a bar, a bookstore, a coffee shop—and having that spark anything? No, it didn’t seem possible. What if she had been assigned to him for a job, maybe? Brienne didn’t really think it mattered, though, because they met under the worst of circumstances and made something alright out of it all. That was pretty remarkable. 

“I don’t know if I have anything in your style,” she said through a small smile. “I was never much for Hawaiian prints.” 

He shook his head, a curving smile on display. “Oh, you wicked woman. Are you telling a joke?” 

“Contrary to popular belief, I can be funny,” she said through a smile. 

He stepped up and toward her. Here, she could see into his eyes. They were the same eyes that had left her, maybe a little more tired of the horrors of this world, but they still held that mischievous glitter that was equal parts fascinating and aggravating. 

“Not your strong suit,” he said, reaching forward and tucking one of her runaway hairs behind her ear. His eyes shot down to her sweatshirt, and he looked up with a renewed sense of jest. “You did roller derby? Oh man. That's perfect.”

“ _ What  _ does that mean?” she asked. 

“I can imagine you now in those short shorts, your strong thighs on display,” he said, holding a hand to his chest. “A thing of beauty.” 

“Stop dicking around,” she said, pushing him back, but he grabbed onto her wrists to keep them in place. 

He stepped closer, their faces so close Brienne could see specks in his eyes she had never noticed before. “I’m going to kiss you now,” he whispered. 

His face was a hair away from her own, so close his breathe ghosted over her lips, and it would be so easy to lean into it and let it happen.  _ She loved him,  _ she reminded herself, as if she could possibly need reminding about it, but she took a step back. 

“You left,” she said, clearing her throat so it would be as strong as she could manage. “For her.” 

He closed his eyes, and she could see the regret on his face. He opened them, taking all of her in, and nodded. “I loved you even then.” 

“That’s not a sorry,” she said. 

This time as he approached her, it was as if to not scare her away. As if he understood how he had brutalized the situation and now he wanted to show just how gentle he could be in trying to fix it. 

“Her and I, we’ve had a codependent, unhealthy relationship for all of my life. It was hard to break, that's true. I should have done it sooner.” He took a deep breathe, and she could tell he didn’t feel quite comfortable looking at her as he released the truth from his chest. “I love  _ you _ , though, honestly, truthfully. I won’t hide it, I’ve spent so long hiding. You’re  _ good _ , Brienne, a kind of good I didn’t think was real, and you have an infectious energy that makes people around you think they can be, too. You make me think it.” 

She stuck her face up a little more, aware there was a tear dripping down her cheek and it was obvious how this was touching her. “I still haven’t heard a sorry.” 

“I am sorry,” he said, the words in a rush of emotion. “I am sorry for leaving, I am sorry I wasn’t the man you deserve then, and I’m sorry I probably never will be. But if you can find it in your heart to love a wretched man, then I will do my best every day to try to be worthy.” 

Brienne bridged the distance, and her hand fell to his wrist with the jagged scar. The same stretch of skin she had labored over to save his life. His free hand came up, and she got as close as she dared. For as strong and bold as she could be, she felt something like a fragile bird in front of him. 

He kissed her, and it made it easy to be open after that. She brought up an arm around his neck, and his hands went to her hips. He dipped into her, the movement slow but sure. After a beat, he opened his mouth and she responded, his tongue meeting hers. She found her strength and pushed him back against the wall, and she smiled into his lips at the sound of his surprised grunt. 

“That was… hot,” he said as he bent back for a breathe. “Who knew you had it in you.” 

She rolled her eyes at him and stepped back. “What kind of shirt did you want?” 

“Oh no,” he said, his face holding a nearly dopey grin. It made Brienne unable to stop her own smile from spreading. “I didn’t mean to break the moment—keep kissing me. You can pin me anywhere, darling. Against the wall, against the bed, I can really be—”

“I  _ will _ stop loving you,” she said in threat as she turned back to her closet. 

He wrapped his arms around her, kissing into her neck, digging his face into the crook there. “So you admit it, you love me then?” 

Turning in his arms, she thought about how to properly describe what it was she all felt for him, but it didn’t matter. None of it would explain it, anyways, and she had never been the best at words. “I do,” she said. “I love you.” 

He kissed her, deep and full and Brienne felt like Jaime saw all of her and loved it still. She was fairly certain she had seen him—the darkness, the desperation for the light, the strength to continue on—and knew that she could hold this man. She wanted to. 

“What wonderful news,” he breathed into her. “Now, my best color I think might be a blue or green, but I want something that really screams  _ I am Brienne Tarth’s _ when I wear it, you know?” 

“I really do hate you sometimes,” she said, but she accented it with a kiss so she wasn’t all that sure Jaime really got the truth of that. 

* * *

“We heading north?” Podrick asked behind the wheel.

“I’m sorry, you trust  _ him  _ to drive more than me?” Jaime asked from the back seat. 

Brienne looked over her shoulder with a withering glance. 

“Podrick has proved himself,” she said before sharing a smile with him. “Yes, head north, Pod. We’re heading to Bran’s college.” 

“I think this one might really be the ticket,” Jaime said, propping his feet up in the back. “We’re going to find them.” 

Brienne hummed back in return, watching Jaime in the rearview mirror. He caught her look and winked, and she couldn’t stop the blush that spread across her cheeks. It was around a year since the end of the world, and it had felt like Brienne had lived centuries in that time. 

_ Lived _ , she echoed in her head, because she had and she would. 

“We are,” she said, smiling behind her. “Hit the gas, Pod.” 

She had hope for all of it—finding them, a better world, a  _ safe house.  _ They could do it, them together. Brienne looked forward out onto the open road, and she sunk into her seat. 

“So, what do you guys do together to pass the time? Road trip games, or…” Jaime said. 

Brienne laughed, full and bright, and when she turned around in her seat she reached between the consoles to kiss Jaime on the lips. “Please, shut up if you’re going to be annoying.” 

He smiled back. “Oh, you love it.” 

“ _ I _ don’t,” Podrick said. 

Jaime chuckled at that, reaching out to pat Podrick’s shoulder. “You might be fun after all.”

The banter continued, and Brienne fell into the rhythm of it, only stopping to throw in a few words of her own every once in a while. They would do it, they would. They  _ could.  _ If there was anything Brienne was certain of, it was her own strength. 

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr as: [anniebibananie](http://anniebibananie.tumblr.com/)


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